Secretly, (OK, not-so-secretly since I'm blogging about it) I have nick-names for my kids.  I actually think of them as compliments, but I'm afraid they might not understand.  Not for a few years anyway.  You see, I sometimes think of them in terms of what I gave up to care for them.  Meet: Body, Career, Yoga, GradSchool, Piano, Novel, Book Club, Clean House and most recently, Blog.  

Some of them double up.  And some of them I will get back to, or find something new to add to my life when I have more mental energy to spare.  Most of the time I don't mind that motherhood has taken over everything.  I don't even miss all those things.  And I hope my children will take it as a compliment that I think they are more important than any of the other things I could be doing with my time.  And I feel really lucky that I have the luxury of giving up almost everything else to focus on them.  

You are the trip I did not take,

you are the pearls I could not buy,

you are my blue Italian lake,

you are my piece of foreign sky.

You are my Honolulu moon, 

you are the book I did not write,

you are my heart's unuttered tune, 
you are a candle in my night. 
― Anne Campbell