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Now that I am about to have my third kid, I’m thinking it is time to become a full-time Mom. You’d think I already was a full-time Mom, wouldn’t you? Well, yes, I do stay at home. I am with them all day long, and I don’t work for a paycheck. However, there are other things that disqualify me from being the Godly “Mom” I am meant to be.

Before I delve into all that, let me say this: It is good to have hobbies. It is good to have interests and time away from your kids. It keeps you sane! It keeps you wanting to come back to your babies.

Where it has become a hindrance for me, is when I don’t put what is best for my kids before my own interests. When I fill most of my time with unproductive things that just move the hours along. When I focus on what I want to do and not what needs to be done for my kids. When I begin a hobby or activity, and then get upset and impatient with my children for interrupting me or asking me for something.

Here’s the thing: They didn’t choose to be born. I am the one that chose to have them. I am the one that chose to become a Mom. And with that, comes a huge set of responsibility and selflessness that I can’t ignore.

So after nearly 4 years of struggling with my wants, their needs, and the precious little time I have with them, here is the conclusion that I keep coming back to:

They come first. It is stopping in the middle of your piano practice, your painting, your reading, sewing, blogging, photography, workout…etc. to change a diaper, or fill a bottle, or make lunch, or build a tower, or race cars, or cuddle, or go outside, or whatever. It is learning to be patient with incessant requests and statements, fears and observations. It is creating a whole separate kid-friendly meal plan for those picky eaters that you can’t seem to get to eat anything other than milk!

It is putting them first, and being ok with it. It is learning to be yourself and be a Mom at the same time. It is not resenting the responsibility, but reveling in it, and in the challenge and the growth you experience along the way.

Every day I am learning how to love my kids.

And every day I am learning how to be a Mom.