I'm working on it.

It's not part of my natural state to wish to stay up for days without sleep, or wear someone else's stomach acid on my shoulders, or wash huge swaths poop out of teeny, tiny clothing. It's not part of my natural state to go for weeks and weeks with no solitary moments - no moments alone, not even a shower or a trip to the loo. It's not part of my natural state to remain calm when the floor I've just picked up for the eighth time is suddenly littered with cheerios or spilled fruit or toys or tiny clothes. It's not part of my natural state to give up nearly everything I want for people too small to know, understand or care. It's not part of my natural state to control my selfish desires and my short temper. It's not part of my natural state to persevere, to endure, to press on, when 'me' is the last person to get a break that lasts fifteen minutes, if that.

Sometimes I don't want to do it. Sometimes I just don't want to. Sometimes I don't want to hear my name five hundred times in a row. Sometimes I just want it to be quiet. Sometimes I just want it to be still and soft and isolated.

There is never a moment when I don't love my kids. Even in those moments of longing for alone-ness, I still love them, and I am still filled with joy at the thought of their sweet smiles, soft skin, and shining eyes.

But you see, it's the 'them' that I love. It's easy to love them. That comes naturally. The hard part comes in the 'service'. Learning to love the service part is the part that doesn't come naturally. And let me just say, from my perspective (which isn't much better than cloudy, so don't take it to the bank or anything), learning to love being a servant, learning to be a good mother, is h-a-r-d, hard.

Some days I do a pretty good job. Some days I don't. I do my best and try to remind my mind that I am an imperfect parent raising imperfect children. But in the middle of the job, it's easy to lose sight of the times I do it well. It's easy to only see the times I lose my temper or don't get the dishes done or keep them up way too late or skip reading a book because I just don't feel like reading about big bird one more time. And it's easy to get stuck in a state of disappointment with the me that is mama.

Today was one of those days. Until right around lunch. When the sweetness that is my three-for-only-three-more-days little girl asked me why I was looking down at the ground.

And with that, she went back to messing around with her horses and her pasta salad.

I just sat there wiping away the water that kept springing up in my eyes.

"Not to be served, but to serve". Love is an action, after all. Press On.