Seeing your foyer filled with overnight bags from all three of your kids and new daughter-in-love unleashes all the feels because a full house means a full heart.

You don’t realize when you are deep in the weeds with littles how much you will miss the mess.

You don’t realize until you live in an empty home where only memories echo off the walls how much you will miss the noise.

You don’t realize when you are dog tired from running three kids all over creation how much you will miss the chaos.

The moments when the mess, the noise, and the chaos make their way back into your life feel like an IV drip for your soul. The slow drip hydrates the empty spaces and infuses new life into your being as you stuff new memories into your heart.

Mommas, we can’t imagine a life without our babies in tow until we find ourselves in this space. Which is even more reason to focus all of our attention on wherever our feet our planted in the moment and enjoy what we have. This is not to say we won’t have horrible days, deep suffering, and moments when we can’t fathom how we will get through. The hard stuff is a given. But time is not.

You realize time is an illusion the older you get as it slips by at a more rapid pace by the year. Even more reason for all of us to embrace our “now” moments while we have them, good, bad, or otherwise. Now is all we’ve got.