A Few Lessons Learned Along the Way

In the past four days I have cleaned up every imaginable body fluid.

Urine, poop, puke, boogers, eye goobers...you name it, I've wiped it!
Two of my kids are in diapers (one is allllllllllmost potty trained, or elimination communicated, or whatever you wanna call it - she's wearing ginch a lot of the time - WOOHOO!), and yet I've cleaned urine off of a kitchen chair and poop off of the carpet.
Two places where those fluids do not usually reside.

We are well into the second go of toddler-hood at our house, and by no means are we experts, but there are definitely a few things we've learned in our journey.

The number one, most important thing we've learned is...

We aren't experts.
Period.
We aren't even experts when it comes to our own kids - one day their favourite food is eggs, the very next day they can't fathom that such a revolting food can exist!
Kids are tricky lil' buggers.

Since we got hitched, almost six years ago, kids have been a part of our lives.
Our first made damn sure we knew she was on her way just one day before we hopped on a plane for a week-long all-inclusive vacation that included our wedding.
It was a blissful holiday.
"Why does everyone smell like BO and cigars?!?!"
I said that.  On the plane.  Not in an inside voice.
Pregnancy is so lovely, and fittingly so, is the beginning of parenthood.

So, newly married, unexpectedly excited to be pregnant back then, and somehow, we've muddled our way through six years and as of yet, we're relatively unscathed.
As in, our marriage is still in a good place, and our kids are pretty cool.
Sometimes.

We've made our marriage priority number one.
Is this the right order of importance for every family?
By all means, no.
Is any of this information applicable to every family?
Nope.
Just mine.
If you're reading this, or any blog, for that matter, or, if I'm being totally honest, if you read anything on the internet at all, know that it is generally information only, and not the rules for life.

There are a few things that we know now as our youngest will be entering into the toddlerhood years.
We know that we must have a sense of humour.
We know that there will be freak outs.  Lots.  We will all have them.
We know that being parents is the hardest job.  Ever.
We know that sometimes we won't be getting a whole lot of sleep.
So therefore, our nerves will be fried.
And therefore it might be a "yelling" day.
And, also, that's OK.
We know that there will be times that we are just surviving and if my husband and I are just friends at the end of the day, that's a victory.
But we have to work at keeping the romance.
Because without that, we're just roommates raising kids together.

One of our toughest, and still ongoing, lessons has been that we must put each other first.
It can be very hard to consider one another while in the sleep-deprived, threenager-screaming, somebody's-always-crying, dad-to-day circus grind.
But we've found that when we are a unified team, and we love each other first, the parenting seems to come a little easier.

Our kiddies will only be small for a short time, but they will be adults for a long time.
We're trying to make sure that we're leaving good people to the world, and not just good kids right now.

It's a tough job, we know, and so to all the parents out there, you're doing a great job.
Keep it up.

My nearly-three-year old is currently watching a Barbie music video.
I'm still doing a good job.
Although you should know that she's going to have a freak out in a minute when I take the iPad away...