Us.

Do you ever have those moments where you realize you are content and satisfied? Last night was like that for me. It started with Mike coming home from work. He's been working a lot, weekends too. So instead of cooking dinner we ate In N Out. The babies squealed as he tickled them and they wrestled on the floor. I got to flip through the stack of magazines I've been wanting to read. Both babies went down early. There was no talk of bills or unfinished projects. Instead, Mike and I snuggled together in bed. And I was a wife in love.

I recently had a conversation with a friend who said that her passion is to be a mom first. Her priority is her children. Not a bad priority. But for me, I need my marriage to come first. During our wedding ceremony our pastor shared that he believes our focus should be on God first, then our spouse, then our children. When those are in order, then we are prepared to model love as parents. I agree with him. Last night I felt loved and this morning I woke up full of love to share with my babies. I obviously feel fulfilled by my role as a mother, but there are other parts of me that need to feel validated as well. I am a wife, a friend, a woman.

Before I had kids I always heard 'make time for date nights.' I kind of rolled my eyes at this. Not because it sounded like a bad idea, but it sounded so...sad. Like, the only time you were going to connect with your spouse is for an hour out to dinner? Yuck. But I get it. For me, it's having time set aside to not only focus on my husband, but myself as well. It's taking the time to do my hair and pick out cute shoes to wear. It's doing things that make me feel pretty, even though my bra is still stuffed with nursing pads (or even worse, I'm out of bra pads so I've cut up maxi pads and shoved them down my soooo unsexy bra that goes up to my chin).

As Mike left for work this morning, I missed him. Not because the babies were up at 5 and it was going to be a long day. But because last night something inside of me stirred and I'm glad I'm a wife first.

You know what I mean?