this is who I was meant to be

Taking my little family from one kid to two has been so much fun! Going from parenting one four year to a four year and a two year old has been challenging, but it has been more exciting and rewarding than I had imagined. My boys are getting to know each other, starting to play together, and slowly starting to show a little less jealousy when Mommy's attention is needed with one child over the other. Just a little less. I still always have at least one child hanging off of me, and I wouldn't want it any other way.

When my older son was a toddler I watched his every move. I baby proofed our entire house and admonished my husband when he didn't close both the gate at the bottom of the stairs and the one at the top. I never let him eat unless he was sitting in his high chair. I was over the top careful with my sweet little guy. This time around I am finding that I am a lot calmer. I have learned that my older son is going to climb over the sofa, which means that, occasionally, he will fall off. I have watched both my boys stand on a kitchen chair to reach the counter. I have witnessed them falling over in the bathtub and dunking into the water. I know they will fall, they will scrape their knees, they will eat too much cotton candy and have tummy aches. And none of it will throw me into a panic.

I truly feel as though I have come into my own. This is what I was meant to be; a wife and a mother. There is nothing that I want more, and nothing more that I want in my life. I knew I would be happy when my family was complete, but I had no idea I would be this happy. And this is how I know. This was my morning yesterday:

My two year old managed to complete all of these tasks between 7:45 am and 11:00am:

•  take ever paper out of the accordion file I had been using for the adoption and spread them throughout the living room. Anyone who has ever gone through the adoption process knows how much paperwork is involved. That file was full of copies of every document we might ever need, and every copy was tossed onto the floor. It looked like it was snowing in my living room.
• take every small toy and matchbox car out of the canvas bin, look at it, and toss it aside.
• take every pot and pan out of the cupboard, bang them together, then throw on kitchen floor, making lots and lots of noise.
• steal Mommy's cell phone and hide in seat compartment of school bus riding toy.
• sit in high chair and throw shape shorting blocks across kitchen, narrowly missing Mommy's head. Repeat three times before Mommy finally takes blocks away.
• sneak off to ride big brother's new scooter, fall off repeatedly, cry. run over own foot, Mommy's foot and the cat. Repeat.
• dump bag of goldfish crackers on kitchen floor, amid Tupperware and pans previously removed from cupboards. run over crackers with scooter. sit on cracker pile and eat own weight in colored goldfish.
• shove cheese curl into DVD player. Refuse to show Mommy where cheese curl had been hiding. (I didn't even know we had cheese curls...)
• remove shorts and diaper. attempt to flush diaper down toilet. run around house naked while waving diaper over head. giggle.

all of this in 3 hours. It took me most of the afternoon to clean everything up. And I loved it. This is what I was meant to do.