For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. Not any mom, though — the MOST AWESOME MOM! I thought it would be easy. I had a blueprint for how it would go, how I would parent, how I wouldn’t parent. (More on that later)

Let me say that again in case you missed it. I thought it would be easy. I figured I’d “grow up”, go to college, start my career, marry the “right guy”, and start having oodles of babies who would grow up and love me unconditionally, and because I had this parenting thing all figured out, they would turn out perfect. Foolproof plan, right? Yeah, except NONE of that happened… not in that order anyways. I never did make it to college (I know, gasp! The horror!), I didn’t end up marrying the “right guy” until just about two years ago (more on that later, too), I didn’t figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up until five years ago, and oh, about that — I never did “grow up”. And kids? I have five that grew inside of me, and three that have grown in my heart, a bonus from marrying my husband. And as for the unconditional love? Let me just say that having teenagers has done WONDERS for my humility. I lament the days of waking up eight times a night to nurse a teething toddler, changing diapers, cleaning up projectile baby vomit, and really everything I complained about endlessly when they were teeny tiny. Having teenagers has brought me to the brink of insanity and back more times than I can count, and I DON’T DIGRESS — I can carry on for hours without taking a breath. Parenting teens is NOT for the weak!!

There is hope, however… the kids that are still teenagers are growing and maturing, and I can see glimpses of the adults they are trying to become. My daughter (the only one of five) is loving and compassionate and kind, and I see beauty emanating from her soul. I can’t wait to see who she becomes! My two teen boys have matured in leaps and bounds in the last year, and are fighting their way out of the dark days that inspired this post. And my little guy who’s ten has watched the teenage train wreck unfold here, and has [hopefully] learned a few lessons. We will see…

I can tell you all of this now because I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel. My oldest is 23, owns his own home, works full time, and has a child of his own that is 9 years away from inaugurating him into his own term of hell on earth, so I’m going easy on him now so I can save up all of my laughing and pointing for later. But honestly, he’s a remarkable human being, and even though I still have four coming up behind him who occasionally make me thankful for “case-of-wine-of-the-month” clubs, I know that I at least got one thing right. Hopefully he feels the same.