People ask me all the time if we’re finished having babies or if we’re going to, “try for a girl”. I never really know what to say. Why? Because I really don’t know.

I would love to have a little girl. I look at the relationship I have now with my own mother and I would love to have a daughter of my own to do the things that only moms and their daughters can do.

I would love to have another baby. Would I? I don’t even know that for sure. Do I miss those sleepless nights? Nope! Do I miss the 3am feeds? Not a chance. Am I happy that I’m finally a size I’m happy with? Oh God yes. I gained 60 and 62 pounds respectively with those boys and it’s taken me three and a half years to get that weight back off. But children are really worth all that sacrifice, really they are.

What’s stopping me from putting my foot down and saying enough is enough? I’m not ready to move to the next chapter of my life. I’m still in denial that I’m 32, closing the door on more children feels like closing the door on my youth. Yes, I know that seems a little ridiculous.

There are days when I want another baby so bad that I can almost feel her (or him) in my arms.

Then I have a rough day with the boys and I’m ready do run out and get my tubes tied.

It wasn’t too long ago that I was asking myself how would I know when I was ready to have children, now I find myself wondering how I’ll know when I’m finished?

That’s the emotional side, now let’s get practical.

We live a fairly comfortable life, but not without many sacrifices, can we afford to bring another child into this world? The diapers, the food, the utilities, it all adds up with the little buggers and that just the expenses in the beginning. Could we ever afford three (or more) college tuitions?

Where would that child sleep? We have a four bedroom house and I don’t want the kids sharing rooms. Looks like I’d have to sacrifice our home office for another child. Where would all that stuff go? We’d need a bigger car since I can’t fit all those car seats in the back of mine.

Can we really afford to expand our little family by one?

The biggest thing stopping me?

I am a miserable pregnant woman. I don’t glow or look radiant. Quite the opposite actually, I look run down, tired, and HUGE. I didn’t enjoy either one of my pregnancies, in fact I couldn’t wait until they were over. I am probably the most miserable pregnant person to ever walk the face of the planet and I have the photographic proof of it.

Does that look like someone who should be having anymore kids?

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the future brings to Mommyland. Will I stay in denial indefinitely about being through with babies or will I finally come to a decision one way or another? Stick around to find out.

I won’t be winning any mother of the year awards.

Poor Cameron has been in desperate need of shoes for a few weeks now. His sneakers have worn right through the toes and you can see his socks through them. I have no idea how they got like that, the only thing I can think of is that he’s chewing on them when on one is looking.

It’s bad!

Well, we’ve been getting a bit of rain lately and this morning I didn’t want to send him out in the torrential downpour with gapping holes in his shoes, so I told him to put on an old pair.

Of course we were running late for the bus and I wasn’t paying attention to his complaints. As it turns out the shoes I had him put on where a size and a half too small.

Yes, I subjected my son to Chinese Foot Binding first thing in the morning.

There was nothing I could do, the bus was coming and I had to get Logan to school. The poor kid was on the verge of tears as he got on the bus.

There is probably a call to CPS being made as I write this post.

I didn’t take this lightly, I don’t really enjoy torturing my kids (usually), so I decided I had to get him some new shoes…STAT! Or at least right after I dropped Logan of at school.

You don’t open until when?

Why would a shoe store open before 10am? It’s not like a terrible mother was in desperate need of shoes for her child or anything.

I waited a half an hour to get in and ran right to the kid’s shoes. It pained me to bypass all the cute mommy shoes, but I had a son in trouble.

They had his size…SWEET!

The school secretary now has proof that I’m crazy.

I run in, breathless with a shinny new pair of sneakers in hand and ask them to please pull Cameron out of class. The secretary says she’s not sure she wants to ask as she tells me a story of a mother who carried her kid to school without shoes or socks when it was snowing. She told me she has seen it all, but I’m not too sure about that one, who does THAT? Definitely NOT the mother who would put her kid in shoes his little brother could fit in and push him out the door.

The look of relief of Cameron’s face when he saw me standing there holding some new shoes was priceless. He was near giddy as I put them on his feet and sent him back to class.

I’m hoping that I made up for my epic shoe fail this morning.

The moral of the story? Always have a backup pair of shoes that actually FIT your child. Learn from my mistakes people!

Before I became a mother I was pretty hard. I could make it through (most) sappy movies without crying. Commercials were a minor nuisance and NEVER able to get any kind of reaction out of me, certainly no tears.

Since having kids I’m a hot, steamy mess. I don’t know if my hormones are so out of whack that there’s no saving me or if it’s all part of that fundamental change that occurs once you become a mother.

The other night I was minding my business, watching Grey’s Anatomy, when the commercial below came on. I like to tweet during commercial breaks so it took a few seconds for it to catch my attention, but it did. By the end I was near sobbing.

Am I doing OK? Would a cute little baby have those things to say about ME?

Someday, when my boys are reading these posts (probably after I’m long gone), I hope they’ll know I did my best. I know I’m never going to win any mother of the year awards, but I’m doing the best I can. Do I want to be more for them? Hell yeah, but I’m giving them all I’ve got. When I’m long gone I just want them to know that they were loved from the moment I knew they would be coming into the world.

To ALL the Mother’s all over the world…Happy Mother’s Day! Keep putting in the time and effort. Keep doing what your doing.