First, let me say that I am ashamed to admit this BUT I used to be so stinkin judgmental. I would see frazzled moms rushing through the aisles of the store in clothing that resembled their pajamas and with children that had mismatched clothes, missing shoes, and the WORST offense of all...SNOTTY FACES!!! There I stood with my 16 year old self, knowledge and wisdom just emanating from me and would think, "What a mess. Is she lazy or what??? I would never NO never let myself or more importantly my children out of the house like that..." Well as the saying goes," What comes around goes around," and I all too often have to eat those words. I am that mom. I don't have girls so I don't know about them, but I know boys and it is a scientific certainty that within 2 minutes of a bath and clean clothes they will find mud, they are wired to lose shoes, genetically predisposed to mis-match their clothes and literal GRIME magnets.

The other day I looked though all the pictures on the computer and had a sad realization, I have no good pictures of them. I mean there is the occasional clean and smiling face, the token photo that you send to grandparents, but overall I have files upon files of stinky, mis-matched, slightly grimy boys and as much as I love those grimy boys...as much as I adore their stink... that judgmental 16 year old resurfaced and she cringed. She took charge, scrubbing the grime and stink away. She dressed them in clothes they HATED and made them sit WAY TOO LONG...and listened to them whine and moan and SHE LOVED EVERY SECOND OF IT! Deep under those layers of grime she found these sweet faces.