They sleep, and soon I will sleep.  Those loud, crazy, rambunctious boys of mine are quiet, peaceful, at rest.

Every night I put them to bed, and I hope that the memories they have from the day are good ones, encouraging ones, ones that build them up instead of tearing them down, ones that grow them more and more into the men they were meant to be.  And I hope that I played a part in those good memories somehow. 

Every night I process the day, I relive the moments, I take away all I can from them – learning, changing, and planning what I would do if THAT moment comes up again, glad that I survived living it out the first time!  (Even if my response was less than stellar)  Or I laugh, enjoy and store away gems in my treasure box of motherhood, knowing THAT moment went really well, couldn’t have gone any better. 

I may not share all the bad when I write about being a mom.  Not because I’m covering it up, or putting on a front, but because I just want to let it go, start afresh, tomorrow is another day, move on, hoping for good.  I want to be real and transparent and honest, but I also want to leave the not-so-good behind.  There are MANY hard times, bad times, frustration, anger, discouragement, doubt, confusion, you name it.  But there are also MORE than many good times, and those are the ones I want to store away at the end of the day.

Tonight as I venture off to sleep, I look forward to the morning, to another day, to all that it will bring – hopefully good, but more than likely some bad too.  The thing is… how will tomorrow end?  That’s up to me – letting go of the bad, holding on to the good – loving, learning, living the only life I’ve been given, as only I can.