As a Mom to five kids with so much distance between their ages, I never know what the day will bring.  From boo boos and bandaids to birth control and sex talk… to say it’s never boring would be an understatement. Nothing really ever prepares you to be a Mom to this many kids at so many stages in their development. Since there are no instruction books that come with a baby down the birth canal most of us just wing it the best we can and I am certainly no different.

I would like to think that by the time the little kids are teenagers, I will have mastered the art of mothering.  Lord knows I’m much better at handling the preschooler years thanks to doing it three times before.  But this teenager thing is still new to me.  Everyday I’m faced with something I’ve never been faced with before.  Whether it’s finding a condom in my son’s room, trying to talk my daughter who is almost 18 out of getting a tattoo, wondering everytime they leave here if they are really going where they said they were going and praying they will make it home safely…

There are so many worries that come with having children.  From the minute you find out you are pregnant, you begin to worry… Will the baby be okay?  Will I miscarry? When the baby is born you worry if they are eating enough, growing as they should, not to mention SIDS. In the preschool years, you worry as you send them off to preschool – hoping they easily make friends.  The elementary school years aren’t worry free either.  Will my child make honor roll?  Will he or she be bullied? Then comes the  middle school years- when the reproductive hormones EXPLODE and your son’s voice starts squeaking like a mouse as it changes to a much deeper tone then you hear those dreaded words from your daughter… “Mom!  I got my period!” The high school years are so far the worst though.  They fly by so fast.  Between first dates, homecoming, ballgames, getting the first job, passing the driving test and senior pics… it all zooms by you in the blink of an eye like a bolt of heat lightening in the evening summer sky.

Most people deal with only one stage of motherhood at a time.  I, being the mutitasking, overachiever that I am, have almost gotten to the end of one mothering journey only to begin another.  I used to brag that I’d be 40 when my youngest turned 18… that was until Devin and Makenzie came along.  Now that’s been pushed back to 52 when my youngest is 18.  I must be crazy. *ahem*  Seriously.

Eh, I wouldn’t have made a good empty nester at 40 anyway.  I would have had a midlife crisis after raising children for most of my life and wouldn’t have known what to do with myself (makes me think of that Martina McBride song “When God Fearin’ Women Get the Blues!). Being a Mom is what I know.  It’s what I do and  I enjoy it most of the time.  Sure there are some days I’d rather run for the hills (or a padded room) than change another diaper, fill another juice cup, or hear another school administrator tell me that Dakota has ISS once again, but Mothering is the most rewarding job I’ll ever have.  And you know what, I think I’m pretty damn good at it…even if most days I’m winging it with the teenagers.  The little kids better watch out though… I’ll be Chuck freaking Norris by the time they get to be teens ;)