This is something I wrote back in 2009.  I found it recently and wanted to share it.

May 27, 2009

As I was praying and thinking this morning I had an interesting realization. Yesterday Big Boy had his first friend birthday party. He had been looking forward to it for months and had a lot of fun. It went well and we were all really happy for the rest of the afternoon/evening. I went to bed feeling really grateful for a great day. I was thinking the same thing this morning, “yesterday was such a good day.” Then I remembered yesterday before the party.

We had gone to bed late the night before and all morning either Big Boy or Medium Boy was crying over simple things like wanting the bowl that the other one has, spilling milk on their pants, not wanting to get their diaper changed, etc. I had to go to the store and pick up a few things for the party that afternoon. Sometimes when we go to this store I let the boys get a donut if they’re good. I didn’t want them to have one this time because I didn’t want it to become a habit and I also knew they would be having cupcakes and ice-cream later. Big Boy was okay with this but Medium boy was not. He tried to run away the whole time at the store (heading for the donuts) and when we were leaving without a donut he threw a fit. He was screaming and kicking while I paid for our stuff and continued as we got in the car. He wouldn’t get in his car seat. I forcefully put him in enough to do the top strap and left it at that. (The store is only a few blocks from our house.) He screamed and cried the whole way home. After a whole morning of this it was just too much. (This wasn’t just a one day thing. Medium Boy had been acting this way a lot lately and it was all building up inside of me.) I ended up in tears on the way home telling Heavenly Father that I was at the edge and I didn’t know how much more of this I could stand.

We got home and I put Medium Boy down for a nap, which is what he needed all along. Then Big Boy and I made cupcakes and got everything ready for his party. Medium Boy woke up right as the party was starting and was happy for the rest of the day with the rest of us. We all went on to have a really fun afternoon with no crying or fighting, just laughing, playing and fun.

This one day shows me a lot about motherhood, or parenthood. It is a struggle and a challenge and there are so many times that you are at the end of your rope and you think you just can’t go on. Then there are those times when your kids are having the time of their life and it brings you so much joy. Seeing your children so happy brings much more happiness to a parent than anything that could happen to the parent itself. And the glory of it all is that the good times are the things that we remember most. It hadn’t even been 12 hours and I had already almost forgotten the horrible morning because of the wonderful afternoon. I guess that’s why we go on, why we have more kids and keep doing what we can do make our kids happy. Or maybe it’s because at this point we don’t have much of a choice. Either way, I’m glad we tend to forget about the bad and remember the good times in life.