At this moment I’m listening to my kids laugh and giggle as they play with each other. It’s a rare moment as other parents out there know!!!! When you here it though it warms your heart and reminds you about how much you love them. I know as parents we spend a lot of time complaining about all the bad things that our kids do, and we to often let the good pass us by. I know! I know! there are days that they really do drive us crazy however the good certainly does out way the bad. The memories that we build with them are important and we need to think about them more often.

I have the best kids in the world! Sure they get into trouble for things they aren’t suppose to do but what kid doesn’t!!! We sometimes forget THEY’RE KIDS! Yes you probably get frustrated chasing your 3yr old around the house when they don’t listen to you. Let me tell you it’s even more fun with one hand and one foot! Or better yet my girls love to mock me by walking around like dad, pretending to have canes and not being able to use there hand!! It’s the times like that when it makes it all worthwhile and you forget all the things they do to drive us crazy.

People often ask me how I get through my day with my pain being what it is. I tell them that my kids make me laugh!! Is every day a good day? Not by any means! It’s that one time when I’m feeling sad or down and they make me laugh that’s worth a million bucks. Lasting memories is what it’s all about!! When you have kids, you have to be able to re-live your childhood and learn to embrace it. You really haven’t lived life until your kid has barfed on you a couple times. Good times! Or the times that your kids have peed on you. Then there are the times that your child wakes several times during the course of the night, when your nice and warm under the covers sleeping like a baby yourself. Yes! we still love them don’t we!! Isn’t this the reason we became parents in the first place, to embrace everything that comes with parenting?

My daughter Emily is the more cautious of my two kids, and I’ll never forget bringing her home for the first time. When in China she wouldn’t walk for us, and she was very scared to be away from our side. When we walked in the door of our house for the first time we put her down in the kitchen and she started running laps around the centre island in our kitchen. She was also scared to walk from the lino across the hardwood to the carpet. She would get down on her knees and crawl across then stand again.

At the same time however here is this cautious little kid who loves to go on the scary rides, and in her brain the scarier the better. Riding the roller coaster is in her future and I can see her being one of those kids that travels the world to ride each and every coaster there is. She also loves tobogganing! Did I mention the steeper the hill the better.

Then there are the times that Emily likes to mother us and tell us how we should be doing things according to the rules that we have set out for HER in the first place. It cracks me up when my kid uses my own rules on me. Am I or am I not suppose to be the one making the rules?? Katelyn our 3yr old has had her fare share of moments as well. Like the time when Emily came in from when they were playing outside to tell me that Katelyn was running around in the nude. So out I went to discover her on the swing set riding the swing in the nude. In her mind riding in the nude is better!!! Never mind the fact that now that she has no diaper on she has pee running down her legs!!

Katelyn also has a favorite saying “I’m frustrated!” What I love is that she looks at us with this real serious look on her face and crosses her arm’s and says it. Five seconds later she breaks out laughing at herself. These are the types of things that I’m talking about, memories that will be forever etched in my brain able to bring a smile to my face.

Time goes by faster than we realize and you don’t get a second chance to watch them grow up! So the next time that your daughter or son flushes something down the toilet and you spend the next several hours unclogging it. As you quietly curse under your breathe. Remember all the things that they have done to make you laugh!