How Moms Really See the World, Around the World.

Parenting can be a frustrating gig.  There are somedays when you are up to your neck in laundry, have a mountain of dirty dishes, have a kid screaming in one room and you just know the other one is in the bathroom squeezing toothpaste into their hair.  There are days when you look at your spouse and ask "Who told us this was a good idea?"  Then one day you have a day, a great day.  You know the day I am talking about, one of those days where you feel like you are one of those annoyingly perfect parents.  Everything runs smoothly.  You have everything clean at the house, the kids are behaving well out in public, one of the kids tells you something astounding that they learned at school, everything is good.  

For A Different Kind of Girl, my homegirl (is homegirl still an acceptable term?) from Iowa asked me to participate in a project of sorts.  It is an online dialog that was started by Catherine from Her Bad Mother.  It sort of a world tour of mom's from across the world.  It gives a brief glimpse into the reasons we love to be moms.  Or as Catherine said "We want to see if we can pull together a global playdate in 80 clicks."  

So I am joining FADKOG in this global playdate.  I am probably going to laugh and cry though the whole thing; fair warning.  So here are the five reasons (although there are many more) that I love being a mom.

1.  I love seeing my girls turn into little people.  Every once in a while I get a glimpse into what my girls are going to be like as adults.  LaLa, the serious one.  She I imagine as an artiest with impeccable fashion sense living in a quiet small town.  KiKi, the one that I imagine will live in New York, making a living off her fancy law degree, but knowing how to let her hair down and have a good time as well.  

2.  I love passing off my love of a wide variety music.  LaLa, has got to the point where she has learned to sing along with songs.  She usually only gets the chorus but it is awesome to hear her singing the actual words to the song that is on the radio.  She also recognizes tunes that don't sound exactly the same as the first time she heard them.  She can hear two extremely different versions of a song and then say "Hey that was the song I heard on...," just by the tune.  

3.  I love watching my girls become best friends.  Now that KiKi is old enough to understand rules and how to play with others, these two have become the best of friends.  KiKi looks up to LaLa as not only her sister but as her #1 friend.  LaLa has a lot of friends at her school, but when we are standing outside her classroom in the schoolyard she always yells for KiKi to join whatever activity she is doing with the older kids.  She wouldn't dream of leaving her baby sister out of the fun.

4.  I love the innocence of childhood.  LaLa will make friends with any kid.  She has no preconceived notions about anyone.  Everyone is equal in her mind.  I wish more adults were like that.  KiKi has no fear.  Although it could be dangerous for her to leap before she looks, I love that she is willing to try anything.

5.  I love my kids imaginations.  They can make up their own fantasy world and play in it for hours.  There are not constraints to what they come up with.  One day they are princesses, the next day they are shop keepers.  When we were living in Missouri, LaLa would line all her stuffed animals up on the stair case so that her and KiKi could put on a "show" for them.  The well of imagination never runs dry.

So that is a few of the reasons I love being a mom.  In order to keep this dialog going I am going to tag Mom in High Heels who is another military mom. She is living in Germany with her GI and her adorable son.  Plus she is a fellow Cubs fan.  I would love her to share some of the things she enjoys about being a mom with the rest of the world.