Disappointments?

From journal entry dated 3/22/16 while reading Who Are All These Children and Why Are They Calling Me Mom?

  The reflection question for this chapter was: What part of being a mother do I find disappointing?

   Hmmm.....  I always wanted to be a mom.  I didn't really know how many kids I wanted, and Gabe and I never really talked about it.  One kid was perfect, and two was even better because I became a stay at home mom.  We started homeschooling and I was that fun homeschool mom.  Life was wonderful.

   I fell in love with number 3 and a few months later he was moving in with us.  I got a call for number 4 and reluctantly agreed to try it out for 6 months.  It's been 3 years next month, her adoption will be final later this year.  We wanted another baby and brought one back from vacation, she was born exactly 9 months later.  She was 9 months old when I realized that number 6 was on the way.  When he was born, we had 4 kids ages 4 and under.  Life is now crazy.

   I always wanted to be the fun mom with the perfectly decorated, perfectly clean, beautiful dream home.  The last 3 years have stolen the fun mom, but I'm working on finding her again.  The perfectly decorated house may come one day but my budget doesn't have room for it right now.  The clean house?  Um, did you catch that I have 6 kids?  Ah, the dream house.  I had that, it's for sale right now.  The house we live in is nice, but it's so far from that dream house.  I don't know if we will ever have another dream house or not.  I will always long for the perfectly decorated, always clean dream house though.  Just in case you're wondering, it's a big old farm house, with a huge front porch.  It's bright yellow, has lots of windows, and is full of southern charm.  It's a house that invites you to put your feet on the furniture, curl up with a good book and an ice cold drink.  My Pinterest boards are full of them!

   My life doesn't have disappointments, it has dreams that haven't come true yet.  To me, disappointments come once you've given up.  Dreams give me hope and as long as I have something to hope for, I'm happy.