**Ten Years

On Monday I will have been a mom for ten years. TEN YEARS! I have learned a lot, loved a lot, changed a lot, made many mistakes, but most importantly, I raised a ten year old I'm proud to call mine. Despite him being my guinea pig and paving the way for the other two, we taught eachother and learned as we went...and still are. Here we go pre-teen years. Bring it on!!

In honour of having been a parent for ten years I have compiled a list of the ten most important things I learned in the last ten years.

#10 - Ailments that present precisely at bedtime are safe to assume not as serious as they are made out to be.

#9 - If you think your kid has been too quiet for too long and you suspect trouble, you are right.

#8 - If your two year old is the type of kid to need 100 reminders to hurry up whenever you're trying to get him to do something, he will still be like that at 10. Sorry to crush your hopes of change.

#7 - If you clean out your toy shelf and throw/give away toys that your kid hasn't touched in three years, they WILL ask for it the next day.

#6 - You MUST follow through on threats and punishments. One slip up and you've lost all credibility....and best of luck when that happens.

#5 - The feeling you felt when you looked at the positive pregnancy test so many years ago could still bring a little tear to your eye, on occasion.

#4 - Many nights you will go to bed thinking about things you could have done better that day with your kids, but in the end all that matters is that they know you love them. Even if there were hiccups and mistakes and tears, if the love is there it will all be ok.

#3 - Write down the cute things your kids say as they grow up. Reading from that notebook is better entertainment than anything else around!

#2 - Learn when to step back and shut up. I'm still working on this one as my boy gets older. Hoping to perfect it before #2 is ten.

And the number one thing I have learned having been a parent for ten years is: (drum roll please)...It really goes by way too fast. It sounds like a cliche before you experience it, but it's so true.

It really feels like yesterday that they vacuumed my little baby out of my body and rushed him off to the NICU. I still get tears in my eyes when I remember being wheeled to my room without my baby, how it much it hurt when I couldn't hold him, the tears I wiped from my eyes when I reached in and touched him in the incubator for the first time. I remember how he stopped crying when I talked to him, but nobody else could calm him. I remember not sleeping for three days because of worry and for the first time in my life I understood a mother's worry. Then I remembered feeling like my life was beginning the day I walked out of the hospital with my boy strapped into his carseat. I walked behind my husband staring at the baby and I was so thankful I wasn't going home without him. That was the day my life started. The day I became a mom. It's the hardest job on the planet, and one that many days brings me to my knees with frustration and exhaustion, but I wouldn't have it any other way. We made these lives and helped them all become who they are today. There is no greater gift in the world than watching them grow.

Happy Birthday Ten Year old.

I love you more than you will ever know.