Birthday, Fathers Day, and Parenting

Tommorrow my baby turns 2. I always get soo emotional on my childrens birthdays. I have no idea why! I am just an emotional mess I guess! LOL. I was pondering my little Sydney's birthday tommorrow. I realized that my kid's lives are just flying by. It really seems like yesterday that I was bringing Sydney home from the hospital. She was the most adorable little thing. Had tons of black hair, and was really dark, from being jaundiced. She was born with a baby tan! She was incredibly snuggly, still is, and so soft. Still is! LOL. I realized that sometimes as a mom, I feel like I am not really looking at my kids. One day I am going to wake up, and Sydney is going to be 20. Will I remember how she smelled? How soft she was? What her favorite color was when she was two?? ( purple by the way.) I realized today, that I need to really look at my kids. I need to stop worrying about the house, what people think of me, etc. and look at my kids. Stop and smell them. Touch them. Hug them. Ask them what their favorite color is that day! Which brings me to Fathers Day. Sydney was born on Fathers day. What a cool gift huh! Yesterday, in church of course the talks were on Fathers. The 1st counselor in our presidency talked about the responsibilities of fathers. He basically said- are you ready to stand up to your Heavenly Father and be held accountable for what kind of parent you are? It hit me hard. All my life, I have only wanted to be a mom. Heavenly Father made me that way I guess. I never wanted to really go to college or have a career, I wanted to be a mommy. I prepared for it from the time I was old enough to carry a baby doll around. People were asking me to babysit when I was 8 years old!! I loooved kids. I wanted a million babies! Still do- but thats another story LOL. I know that I am a good mom. But I know that I can be even better. I want to be able to look at my Heavenly Father and see the love He has for me. I want him to be able to say " you have done well. You have raised your children in a way that makes me happy." So here is where my title of this blog ties all together. Parenting is soo hard. I make mistakes. You make mistakes, we are human. But we can try our best. We can do like what the talk on Fathers day said, we can be prepared to stand before our Heavenly Father and say we did our best. My baby is turning 2 tommorrow. I am going to make a commitment to love my children, to do my very best for them. How about you?????
Happy Birthday Baby Sydney!