My Body is a Temple, Not an Amusement Park.

There's a Garth Brooks song titled Much Too Young (to Feel this *#$* Old) which is exactly how I feel most days. Instead of waking up feel rested; when I wake up my back hurts, my hips hurt, I'm covered in bruises and feel like a walking zombie. I keep thinking how nice it would be to feel normal, but I honestly can't remember what normal feels like. Then the part of my brain that likes numbers went into overdrive and I came up with a list of what my poor body has been through lately.

In the past 3 1/2 years I've had anywhere from 1 to 3 other people living off my body. That brakes down to approximately 23 month pregnant or nursing twins, 3 months nursing twins while pregnant and 16 months pregnant or nursing 1 baby.

In that time a typical nights sleep consists of about 6 hours of sleep with an average of 2 awakenings for any combination of taking care of kids or nursing a baby or bathroom breaks.

1 night a week I'll spend a good 30 minutes to an hour curled up on a toddler bed trying to get a toddler back to sleep. (sometimes more if I happen to fall asleep that way).

I've gained 40 lbs, lost 30, gained 40, lost 45 (and still have lots more to lose).

I've had 2 C-sections (in other words I've had 3 people pulled out of my uterus).

I spend a significant part of my day doing chores while carrying a baby/toddler on my hip.

I have probably climbed up and down the stairs 20+ times a day and at least half of those I'm carrying anywhere from 16 to 50 pounds of baby/toddler (not to mention the extra weight mentioned above) .

I spend about an hour a day wrestling or chasing kids that don't want to come inside, get their diapers changed, stay by the stroller/grocery cart. (Please tell me I can count this towards my aerobic weekly goal).

And last but not least an hour a day where I'm the human jungle gym (or furniture if there are sick kids in the house). If I get down on my hands and knees to clean up, someone is going to jump on my back. And if I sit down, someone will be climbing me.

Somehow after reviewing this list that tummy tuck and boob lift don't seem all that scary anymore.

More Doodlepad Art by Dakotta

Sponge Bob

A Self Portrait

The Bridge

Dakotta Plays Ball

Elliott is SO Big

Snow 2008

Thank You Meme and Papa!!!

So instead of a crazy amount of toys that I would have to clean up Meme and Papa Hardin decided to give us a family gift this year for Christmas, a new swing set that they had installed yesterday. The kids were so excited until they found out they couldn't play on it until the cement had dried. So today I had to distract them until about noon so that it was above freezing before we went outside.



Elliott loved the baby swing and was so happy to swing away while I was constantly getting the other kids in and out of different swings. The had to test each swing for all of 30 seconds each.





Dakotta was the one that was the most upset yesterday about not getting to go out on the slide, but she was miserable out in the cold today. She kept trying all the swings but she just wasn't having fun. Eventually she decided she was done and just headed back up to the house all by herself.

Rebecca

Corinna

Kendall

Dakotta and Corinna taking turns

Corinna couldn't wait to try out the "baby" swing.
I think she liked how high up it was.