This week has been one of those weeks during which I find myself fully convinced, every hour upon the hour, that I am not cut out for this motherhood thing. Sure, I hear you say, but isn’t that every week for you? To which I respond, why yes, Clever And Careful Reader! That is indeed every week for me!

Here’s the thing, though: although I struggle with the slog of motherhood – the diaper-changing and the bum-wiping and the mopping up and the sibling-boxing-match-mediating and the struggling to not get buried under towering mounds of laundry and the cooking food that immediately gets rejected because this is not spaghetti Mommy you know that I wanted spaghetti and the chasing of naked batshit sprites WHO WILL NOT GO TO BED and the wrangling of snotty toddlers who are not well enough to go to preschool but totally well enough to turn the living room into Cirque Du Saggy Pants and the exhaustion, sweet hell, the exhaustion – and although I worry that I am keeping up adequately with the work of motherhood, I do truly love the love of motherhood.

I love the cuddles and the rasberries and the sweetness of flushed cheeks and the powdery smell of freshly diapered toddler bum and the way that Emilia’s hair sticks up in the morning and Jasper’s ability to name every single train in the Thomas canon and the tiny clothes that get scattered everywhere because even though the fact they’re scattered annoys me, the moment that I pick up a wee sock or a pair of fuzzy footie pajamas I cannot help but smile, thinking of the tiny bodies that fill those clothes. I love Emilia’s lopsided smile and her crazy style rules and the way that Jasper yells OH HELLO MOMMY in a tone of delighted surprise every time that he sees me, even if I’ve only just stepped out of view for a moment. I love them with every particle of my being, and then some, and I love being their mother, and I love all of the loving that they bring into my life, and Kyle’s, and sometimes I love it all so much I fear that my heart will burst, and yes, I love all of this this much even in those moments when I am bitching about diapers and lack of sleep, maybe even especially in those moments, because I know down to the deepest darkest depths of my complicated soul that no matter how hard this gets, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

You know?