Parenting is one big trade-off.

Well, I'm home again.  *sigh* Real life must begin again at some point.  It's always sad to come home from a beautiful hotel and have to search for an open place on the messy living room floor to set your bags down.  Yes, my house actually gets messy enough I could clean it with a lawn rake.   I ought to try that, now that I think of it.  The worst part of it is I've now been home for just over 24 hrs and I haven't gotten a thing done.  The suitcases are still sitting in the living room, my bed is still covered in the laundry I washed and never folded before I left, and there is still no toilet paper in the downstairs bathroom!  On the other hand, we had a great time at my daughter's class party today and we carved some crazy looking pumpkins.  So I guess it's a trade-off.  It's always a trade-off in parenting, though, isn't it. 

We have to trade all kinds of things.  Instead of having a sparkling clean house we make really great play dough monsters and decorate sugar cookies.  Instead of having sex all night long like love sick teenagers we hold scared children or nurse sick ones.  And instead of buying those gorgeous leather boots we pick out new school clothes for the kids.  In the end it's all worth it, or so I'm told.  I'm nowhere near the end at this point and there currently is no light at the end of the mommy tunnel for me, but I don't mind.  I wouldn't trade that snot encrusted face for all the leather boots in the world. 

It's the little moments that I'm hanging on to right now.  That moment when DragonBoy throws his arms around my neck and says, "Carry me!", or when Twinkie#1 says "panyo" instead of "piano".  Those things aren't going to last forever, not even for a few more years.  So, I'm basking in them now. 

Tell me, what are some of your special little moments right now?