"Whoever said that you could not love your fifth child as much as your first, obviously never had 5 children!"

But I do. Yes, that's right, 5 children. Actually, I have 5 natural children and 1 step-daughter. I live in chaos. Pure chaos. Anyone with more than 2 children can relate. Once the adults in the household are outnumbered on a daily basis, chaos builds up somewhere. 

In fact, there is so much chaos that I could not even share this article the way I wanted to, which was by displaying the photo of my son & I at his birth. Our midwife/doula caught a beautiful shot of us staring into each other's eyes, falling in love face-to-face. But the photo was lost in one of the multiple computer crashes that happen in this household and the hard copy disk... well let's just say that finding the mailbox key would be easier. (Oh yeah, don't send me anything in the mail this week).

In any case, if I actually had the picture posted on this page (which I now do because my handsome husband hunted it down for me!), you would see that there were never two people more in love than me & my little Nico-bug. With each child, I worried about my personal resources... could my heart stretch big enough to accommodate one more little soul needing attention? Could I work enough to provide for one more little mouth to feed? And each time, I surprised myself with my ability to open my soul and share my life with one more little person. Besides they start out so small anyway.

With each new addition, I realized higher spiritual understandings and awakened to my truth just a little more. When a mother says her children are driving her crazy, she is right! They are pushing us to the edge of our sanity, to the border of our reality, pressuring us to grow in ways we never thought possible. Spiritual enlightenment comes from living in ways that align us with divine energies, as opposed to negative ones. It's all about exercising patience when we feel frustrated, exuding peace when we feel angry, or creating organization from the mass of messes that we call life, and believe me those babies sure know how to make messes! Finding just another ounce of patience when searching for the perfect prom dress, or growing the amazing ability to wake from one's sleep to catch a vomiting child just before there is a huge mess for both of you, are concrete expressions of spiritual awakening. Finding more within us than we could have ever realized without these sweet little faces, is the meaning of parenting, the forces of faith at work. I cannot count how many times I have prayed that God give me the energy I need to make it through a particularly challenging day, and found that amazingly, I lived through.

Motherhood has been a huge forum for my spiritual growth and awareness. Parenthood is meant to touch the very issues we need to find our true selves. It helps us to face our toughest lessons and explore the best of what we can bring to the world. So, for anyone out there thinking of starting a family, I say go for it! In fact, make two. They're small.