Desensitization

I've realized, now that I'm on kids 3 and 4, that I've become desensitized the world of mothering. Not all of it but some of the rather unsavory parts in particular. Here are a few examples:

1. I do not have child safety locks on each and every door, drawer, crack and crevice in my house. I did in my other house with the other two but not here. What's a little mess to clean up compared to all of the joy they get from emptying cupboards? I'm getting used to going to find my utensils in the toy bin. At least they're consistent.

2. I now let my babies run around naked provided they've already pooped that day. I used to absolutely cringe at the thought of this and couldn't wrap my brain around how you can keep the baby from peeing on the carpet. Now I figure that we'll just rip up the carpet some day.

3. One of the only things that can get me running at top speed up the steps and down the hall is the sound of the toilet seat crashing down followed by a flush and looking around to realize that only one baby is in the room with me. Most of the rest of it doesn't require top speed running.

4. These babies climb everything and take apart everything. Whereas I probably would have stopped that with the older two, now it's just a way to keep them busy while we do math with the other two. Messes can be cleaned up.

5. Dirt. Boys eat it and then they poop it out. There's no point in fighting nature.

6. Puke. I always have and still abhore puke. However the extent of my parental desensitization was illustrated the other day when I was sitting on the kitchen floor eating a bowl of cereal when C came up to me, stuck his finger down his throat and puked all over me and I just continued eating my cereal.

The trick for me is to not become desensitized to the good stuff as well. It's easy to get mired down in the tasks of mothering and not to have fun, laugh and enjoy all of it along the way. Even when the days feel really long and I'm telling the kids not to bicker for the 200 millionth time today, there are moments of pure joy and I have to remind myself to enjoy them and use them as fuel. Parenting is the most delightfully difficult job there is and my goal today is to find the joy in all of it.

Now to wrestle the babies into their diapers...