our glory days

Last night was a doozy. Evelyn had a raging temperature of 104 that was relentless and did not cease until she "woke up" up this morning. I say "woke up" because I don't think the girl really slept, and neither did I. Every 2 hours I was up with her, administering cool compresses on her forehead, redosing the ibuprofen, stroking her feverish cheeks. In addition, Warner also woke up twice in the middle of the night, and by 4:30am I looked at the clock and seriously debated just starting my day then because it's not like 2 more hours was going to get me anywhere. But my fluttering eyes couldn't resist my pillow, and as I laid back down I thought about why, in the wee hours of the morning with a throbbing headache, was I feeling so, ... gosh, I don't know the word I'm looking for... peaceful? merciful? fulfilled, perhaps?  At that ridiculous hour, in what seemed like a bottomless pit of sleeplessness, I felt joy in knowing that I would do anything, ANYTHING -  exhaust myself completely physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually - for these two babes of mine.

I hopped out for a girls night last night with some of my lovely friends. On my way home, I was listening to Adele, and this phrase hit me in a way that I didn't think of before. You should know I love lyrics, like, love, love, love. I can really stretch a song to get it to mean whatever it is I'm emotionally searching for at the time, so while I realize my interpretation is out of context for what the song really is, whatevs, it resonated with me. "Bound by the surprise of our glory days." GLORY DAYS. That connotes a wild thrill, youthfulness, excitement, right? So obviously that should throw me back to my days of young love, when me and Jared's (see Julianne, this is the grammatical thing I was talking about, don't know how to phrase this correctly!) love was actually "born and raised in a summer haze." But what IS SURPRISING is that I feel like my glory days are now, at the age of 26. I'm more bound now than ever, in a spectacular way to a wonderful man. And while my body might not look physically as glorious as in years past, I've never gloried in it more. What my body has done in my late twenties was more than it ever did in the two decades previous. I glory in these two little souls that are discovering this world day by day, or rather one pulling out all the contents of the kitchen cabinet while the other is monkeying around on every piece of furniture, and I get to aid them. I have the opportunity to shelter them, to dress and feed them, to educate them, to moralize them. It is a very daunting task, but I do glory in it.

Jared and I frequently ask ourselves why people want to have kids. It's hard. So very hard, and self-less, and sometimes unrewarding. I definitely have days were I  just want to scream and cry and throw in the towel. In fact, right now I have a post that I wrote earlier this week called "trials and triumphs," that pretty much lays out my greatest frustrations with being a mom right now. I was just waiting on some finishing touches before posting, so I'm sure that will be up here next week :)  But the answer to that question of "wait, why are we doing this kid thing?" is always answered with a powerful yet reverent fury, and usually in the smallest, simplest moments, unprompted by anything but love.

So last night, or this morning rather, when my mind was blizzarding with these thoughts of gratitude for being able to take care of my babes in their moments of need,  I thought back to this quote that I posted on instagram on mother's day:

"I've invested milk and tears, blood and muscle...I've given much. But I have received more - far more. I have children I love more than life, more than self." - the mother in me