Is it worth it and how to be honest

"I don't mean it to be disrespectful or rude, I just really, honestly want to know."

Is what worth it? Having children. Is it worth it to be so frazzled and frustrated? To often behave as erratic as they do, to wonder if you will ever not feel tired, to wonder if you and your husband can take a breath– together, to hear yourself think, to... Not an easy thing to sum up in a conversation.

This conversation happened on the front end of an hour long drive to the mall, with kiddos in tow. Important to note, the back end of the trip resulted in projectile vomiting by my three year old. Screaming, snotty nose, puke covered clothes, you name it. As gross as it could get, it got. Weeeeeee!

I have to laugh at this point in the story. Why? Because it was absolutely absurd. Absurd to be on the side of the highway trying to extract a poor sick little guy from clothes and blankie that are covered in vomit. Cars are racing by, and it is f*@king freezing outside. Unreal. He is crying, of course, I mean I am close to crying and I only have puke all over my hands. He even has it up his nose. He is getting stripped down to his superhero undies, and cars speeding by are blowing arctic air on us. Thank God that I had a set of clothes in the back of the car. This is a small miracle. As quick as I could I peeled the wet clothes off of him and got him into his sleeper. He cried even harder when he realized I could not give him back his beloved blankie, it was lost to a bag in the back of the car. An overnight bag that would hopefully encase that terrible smell of vomit from seeping into the rest of the car. As for the rest of the puke I used my face cloths to wipe off as much as possible.  In the meantime Ella is squealing ewwwww! and writhing around in her seat. Not exactly helpful, but she is five.

So on the front end of this trip I was as usual, very certain that yes, it is worth it. Those moments of joy are so powerful that they erase the discontent, and the light they shine is so bright that it overcomes the darkness I sometimes feel. How could it not be worth it when I can't remember what it is like without these two little munchkins. Thank goodness for amnesia. And the back end of this trip, I was still sure that it was worth it, even though I was certain I could still smell puke on me somewhere. My heart was all busted up for my baby boy as he quietly slept on the couch, clean until the next wave of nausea hit him, and the result splashed onto me.

There are days that I feel the longing for free time, freedom, even free will. The days when I am certain I cannot hear Mommy uttered even one more time, or when the whining feels so oppressive I can't think, those days I will be the first to admit it is really hard. Really hard. So I say my prayers, and ask God to help me be a stronger, more patient mother. A mother that my kids can count on and one that sees the value and the worth in my choice every single day.

Married. And some thoughts.

36. Married 6 years now. And still constantly surprised at the tlc it takes to maintain a marriage. Okay maintain is only the least of it. I certainly don't want to just walk the treadmill, I want the awesome. I reiterate, 36, married 6 years now. So the awesome, well it isn't as you (the collective) would normally define it. For me the awesome is knowing he's got my back, he'll hold my hand, he'll kiss my lips, and know what to do and when...it can change so quickly, he's got to be on his toes to keep up. It is our own personal brand of awesome and only we truly know what it is.

So the attempt, over the last few years is to align my thinking toward recognizing that marriage is it's own living breathing life form. I should, shouldn't I? Give it water, sunlight, nurture it, praise it, talk to it so it can grow, love it and give it space to stretch here and there, but keep it very close, too. It seems too quickly lost if you don't.

Why am I thinking about this? Lots of time alone while my significant other has been hard at work, and this weekend, hard at play. That is the source of this blog at its heart. I need some place to put the spillage so I can exist and handle the rest. I have always needed that.

Back to the tlc part. Keeping marriage solid, intimate and soulful is not easy. Now add kids, job, house to clean, family, blah blah blah. Even harder.

I guess the real reason I am thinking about this is as we get older we see people navigating their marriages in very different ways. Ways that give me pause and make me wonder, when bad choices are regular occurrences, do they not seem so bad to the people who witness them? Does bad behavior act like a virus? Can it get on you? Like a stain on your shirt?