Three Under Three {aka Poop Happens}

I’ve been here before … and so I should know better.

Three under three.

{only the two pictured here, as the sweet baby was sleeping …}

I should know that this stage by heart now … I’ve been here before … this busy, demanding chapter of motherhood – yes, it is fleeting … but also, it can be long …
Someone asked me the other day if I really had it all together … Oh goodness no, I told her! Well, she said, you should blog about that!!

So here it goes. Certainly …  we don’t have it all together here in the Gauthier home. Example, please? Sure. Just that week, I believe I had cleaned up a rather awful poo-painting experiment in the nursery … and not just the walls, but pretty much *everywhere* … oh yes … it’s true. And not just once, but twice … even three times … we eventually tossed the toys that were contaminated.  The Lord has blessed our family with an ever-active-very-mischevious-extermely-smart-fast-moving two year old. Completely opposite of her gentle, mostly-quiet-natured-easily-offended three year old sister.

But dear mothers of many young ones, while I do not have it all together, I do understand … I understand that you are constantly changing various sized diapers, wondering where your lightening-bolt two year old disappeared too and whether or not she found the colorful permanent markers along the way … and I understand that your pint-sized three year old needs more hugs and doses of sweet attention as they grow into an independent ‘older’ child … oh, I know your precious little new baby is calling to be held and rocked and your tired body craves to just sit all day and cuddle your sweet little one in your arms … trust me, I do understand the sinking feeling experienced when your open your two year old’s bedroom door and discover she’s perfected the act of decorating her room with … well, let’s just say, things unmentionable (I think I can stomach almost anything now) … indeed, I do understand what it feels like to fall into bed so exhausted and tired each evening that you no longer can read a few chapters at night and rarely need white noise to help you fall asleep …

Oh, but then … I do understand that feeling, that wonderful, squishy, melt your heart feeling, when your three year old toddles up to you, with her chubby arms behind her back, trying to hold a sloppily-placed bouquet of field flowers ‘just for you’ … and, I do understand that sweet, mesmerizing peace that washes over you when you finally sit with your little baby in your arms and can kiss her all over and drink in the goodness  of her … and when your two year old, fresh from the soapy bath :), pats her bed beside her and says ‘story, mommy, story’ … oh, yes, I understand that wonderful, God-given grace that fills your heart …

And somehow, that gets me through. That, and God, of course. And the eternal-ness of this calling called Motherhood.

Three under three.
It’s tough work, no doubt about it. It’s probably where all grey hairs originate from …

and yet … I know better.
This stage does not last. And as tiring as it might be, it’s a beautiful, wonderful, sticky, yes?, fantastic stage.

And while I don’t have it all together, I do know better  – this time around.