There are many joys intrinsically linked to the process of parenting. Certainly there’s nothing like watching the light of understanding flicker on in a child’s eyes when he first learns to read. Or there’s the heartwarming delight of seeing two kids embark on the lifelong friendship of siblinghood. It’s a great joy and privilege for me, as a mother, to be a part of life experiences like these.

You know what else is a joy and privilege?

Messing with their heads. Sometimes, and only in good fun, and all in the name of a good geography lesson.

Let me explain.

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p> My husband was out of town all week last week. He was fulfilling a life-long dream of getting to attend The Master’s in Augusta, Georgia, and he drove cross-country with my brother, my dad, and my uncle to see it. (He made a pit stop at Talladega Superspeedway, calling me from his cell to find out if I wanted my Ricky Bobby tube top to be in rhinestones or glitter. That has nothing to do with anything, except that it’s been making me laugh all week.)

Anyway, I have held down the fort alone for the last several days, something I (thankfully) don’t have to do too often. Let’s get this out in the open: I am a wimp. I know it, I own it, and there you go. I know there are plenty of women whose husbands travel frequently. I know there are countless single moms who handle details with the kids on their own, 24 hours a day, every single day. I will say, in all seriousness, that my hat is off to these women. That is an amazing feat.

Because holding down my fort alone for a week has nearly done me in.

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My first two weeks of motherhood were awe-full. Not awful, awe-full -- full of awe and amazement, as I looked at my new son with bleary-eyed amazement that he had grown inside my body. Did he really breathe in and out? Was I really a mother? What were those nurses thinking letting me bring this little person home?

And yet, there he was -- all mine, sound asleep (sometimes) in my house, in my arms. I could hardly breathe for the sheer wonder of it.

Of course, I loved him from the first moment, but it was an untested love, akin to the first blush of a heady romance. He was perfect. He was mine. He could do no wrong. That first rush of mother-love I felt for him was unmistakable, but it wasn’t fully the real thing. Not yet.

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I have four children. That’s not, by some standards, a gigantic family (although the floor of my laundry room occasionally makes me wonder if we’ve somehow added a few stowaway children I haven’t met yet). To me, four feels like a lot sometimes. My husband and I both come from small families. We are still occasionally mystified that we manage a crew that cannot be safely transported in a normal sedan, and that we automatically have a parties-of-six-or-more gratuity figured in the moment we walk in a restaurant.

But it’s a good life, and I wouldn’t trade the chaos and laundry for all the sedans in the world. Still, there’s a learning curve involved in managing a larger-than-average family, and I’ll take all the pointers I can get.

So I was absolutely thrilled to learn about a new book by one of my favorite bloggers. She’s Mary Ostyn, of Owlhaven, and I started reading her blog about three years ago. Her story is a striking one: she and her husband John are the parents of ten children, six of whom they’ve adopted internationally. What I have loved about Mary, and the reason I have continued to soak up her wisdom every chance I get, is that she does not pretend to be Super Mom. She loves and enjoys all her children, all while admitting that it’s sometimes hard and messy. She faces parenting challenges squarely, with a wicked sense of humor and a hefty dose of common sense. I had the privilege of meeting her at a conference last summer, and it was such a treat to pick her brain in person!

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This past weekend we tackled our semi-annual massive cleaning of the kids’ rooms. (And let me just pause to take this opportunity to invite the UN Weapons Inspectors to stop by my house at their convenience, because I may have found the weapons of mass destruction.)

It’s not pretty.

Once the closets were reorganized, the top of the dresser cleared, the Legos regrouped after being flung to the farthest reaches of our house, it was time to tackle the under-bed area, otherwise known as the End Of the Universe.

Hubs and I glanced at each other, and I gave him my best Jack Bauer hand signals: “I’m going in. You got me covered?”

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