My youngest son is spending his second night in his "big boy bed" tonight. He loves the bed though he insists "I still yittle, I just has a big boy bed."

I looked at him sleeping there yesterday and thought he looked so small, yet...not. Not anymore.

I was away for a week and in that week he went and grew up on me. His speech pattens are different and his face looks more boyish now, and less like a baby. I missed so much in that week. Yet what I missed was almost unidentifiable to anyone but his daddy and I.

I am so grateful that I am home with my kids everyday. that I see every little thing and can note the minor changes in just a week.

I have had people tell me I am "lucky" to be able to stay home, and while I am truly blessed beyond measure, there is no luck in this decision.

Way back, what feels like a million years ago, my then-fiance and I were sitting in a booth in our favorite Mexican restaurant and I said "I just want you to know, I won't put my kids in daycare." I think he agreed without fulling understanding what that meant, but he did agree and it became a tenet of our marriage from the beginning. I am so grateful.

Everyday I am grateful to have a husband who is so passionately in favor of me being the 24 hour on-call mother to our kids. The one who kisses all the boo-boos. The one who gets to deal with all the attitudes. The one who has memorized everything from Blue's Clues to Spongebob. The one who has at one point or another had just about every kind of oozy, drippy, runny, or lumpy kid secretion on me or my clothes. The one who's been embarrassed in the grocery store and filled with pride at the playground.

It hasn't always been easy, cheep, or lucrative to be here. To be home when bills piled up, or stresses did. It hasn't even always been affordable. And we do without a lot of the extras...but we never want for anything of import. God always provides. Often He even provides a little...or a lot...extra.

I don't really know the point of this blog and I certainly hope it doesn't sound all mom-against-mom. I think most parents want to do the best they can. Gosh, I hope they do anyway.

I guess, I don't know, I guess I just wanted to put it out there. Most really amazing things don't come easy or by accident. They require a lot of effort and determination. This is no different.

I wish every mother could and would stay home with her children. It's blessings times one million. I know there are mothers that can't, and I want to support them anyway I can, but sadly, I also know there are mothers that just wont, and that is heartbreaking.