Greatest Accomplishment Achieved, Unexpectedly

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I wanted to take a break from my regular posts, to write one focused on my children, my role as a mother, and how that makes me feel.  It’s important to do this sometimes, because if I am great at anything, it is due to the surge of love and support I get from them everyday. Thus they deserve a mention, where they are the focus, in the best way I know how.

I woke up this morning with a day full of plans to do important things with important people. It was one of those days where I get to dress pretty and talk to adults about stuff adults like to talk about. I crave those days because most of my days consist of non-adult conversations, and non-pretty outfits. I get to be the intelligent, professional, hard working woman that I have strived my entire life to be.

And as I get ready, my boys sitting next to me, will compliment me regularly. “I like your hair, Mama.” “You look like a princess, Mama.” It’s enough of an ego boost to get me out the door feeling like a million bucks and ready to take on the world.

But then after a long day away, doing all those important things, with important people, talking about all the things adults like to talk about, dressed in my pretty clothes, having spent the day portraying the intelligent, professional, capable woman I have worked so hard to become in my life, I realize that nothing is more fulfilling and more rewarding, than getting in my PJs, pulling back my hair, taking off my make up and cuddling with my sleeping toddlers in their beds (and sometimes, if I missed them even more than expected, cuddling with them in mine).

And it is then when I can truly appreciate the funny turn my life, the life of this ambitious, professional woman, has taken.  For though my personal and individual accomplishments make me proud and bring me joy, it seems that nothing stirs my soul more, warms my heart the most, and makes me feel as accomplished as the boys I call my sons.

Who would’ve thought?  I know I never would’ve.  I was probably the only girl in school who never wanted kids.  I was the chick that was going to travel the world, and live off the kindness of others while I backpacked through lands that until than only men had backpacked through.  I was going to be a famous singer, sell millions of records, making awesome music videos and win awards. I was going to write books and novels, films and plays.  I was going to work in the UN and save the world.

And then I had kids. And as I lay here, smelling the warm bare skin of my sleeping 3 year old boy, it seems that I have accomplished more than I could have ever imagined possible.  And though I didn’t save the world, it seems that the world my children have created for me has, in some strange way, not only saved me, but made me whole.

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, my former dreams are replaced with days filled with bath times and play dates, kissing ouchies and soothing away colds, making pancakes and watching Sponge Bob.

And yet, here I am, my heart aching with the surge of the loving emotion I feel for my children. I fall asleep knowing that right there, next to me lies my biggest and best accomplishment and that there is nothing I can do in my life, no matter how great, that could ever be better.

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