Can I just be honest...(black and white continued)

My sister Whitney came and visited us last week. She wanted to meet our new little addition to the family! Gosh what a treat. She helped out in more ways than I can even say. Just having an extra set of hands was more than a relief. I'm going to be honest, the newborn stage is hard. I do love it, and I know it's such a fleeting phase, but it is still hard! Yep, I said it...being a mom is hard work! It's like my own mother once said, "nobody can prepare you for becoming a mother..."

When sleep is a complete stranger, and changing multiple diapers in the night while semi delirious becomes far to familiar. When you're engorged and  leaking everywhere, oh and getting out of the house ON TIME seems like the most impossible task known to man--or suddenly you look over and your toddler is trying to change your newborns diaper all the while stealing the binki that was keeping that newborn calm and collected while you TRIED to get ready for the day...oh the list can go on, and even as I type this out I am laughing out loud because it all sounds quite comical!? I mean seriously someone should make a sitcom about moms and newborns--it could be a hit! :-)

But when all is said and done, I realized something the other day. Something that (for some reason) I hadn't ever given much thought to until now. It was simply this, that all things come to an end. The night time feedings and diaper changings will end. The "leaking" will end. The binkis will disappear and the swaddling will become something of the past. And, suddenly all these things that were exhausting me, and making me feel  undeserving and overhwelmed became quite the opposite. Knowing it'll end has made me appreciate and endure it the best I possibly can. And, to me,  that is an amazing realization!

Whitney snapped these photos of me and my girls the other day while we were all hangin' out. In this photo below I didn't know she had me in the shot, I thought she was just close up on Cozette's face. I look a bit dazed and tired, the face of a mother with a newborn and two year old--a little exhausted and completely IN LOVE.  My life is far from perfect or glamourous but I don't want it to be...where's the fun in that?!