Motherhood is an emotional rollercoaster ride with all the highs and lows, twists and turns, and nauseating moments you get from the one at your local amusement park. However, unlike your typical two-minute ride, this one lasts a lifetime and begins moments after you pee on a stick.

Hop in and I’ll share a seat with you on my rollercoaster ride so far!

* When I found out I was pregnant, I was elated. I couldn’t wait to be a mommy, again and again.

* During the first trimester, I panicked. What came in the easy way, had to come out the hard way.

* During the second trimester, I was calm. I knew if millions of women could deliver babies, so could I.

* During the third trimester, I was desperate. I felt like I couldn’t wait another minute to get my body back again.

* The moment my children were born, I felt relief. They were healthy.

* Three days post-partum, I was depressed. I couldn’t bear the fact that one day my babies would leave home. Yes, only three days later. While that thought still brings tears to my eyes, the baby blues made me sob at the unbearable notion.

* Three weeks post-partum, I was overwhelmed. How could I possibly take care of a baby, then a toddler and baby, then two kids and a baby all by myself during the day?

* Three months post-partum I felt capable. I had mastered breastfeeding, the car seat and how to get a shower in during the day.

It’s been over ten years since I started this rollercoaster ride and during that time I’ve also felt:

* Immense pride for all that my children are . . . smart, beautiful, thoughtful, fun, generous, polite, creative . . .

* Guilty for raising my voice, being impatient and taking my stress out on them.

* Crippling worry about their emotional and physical well-being.

* Grateful to be blessed with three incredible daughters.

* Stressed at the amount of tasks I have to do while being the primary caregiver.

* Lucky to be their mommy.

* Angry when they are disrespectful to me.

* Content knowing that my decision to not work outside the home was the right one for me.

* Regret on days I’ve spent more time nagging than playing.

* Happy just being with my daughters.

I know there will be more highs and lows on this emotional rollercoaster, but there’s no better ride than motherhood!

A few months ago I shared that I think it’s important to listen to the words of Thoreau and live the life you have imagined. While I don’t know what Thoreau had in mind when he uttered those profound words, I know I always imagined being part of a big family. And since fate would have it and I am an only child, I knew I had to make that large family myself . . . well, with my hubby’s help of course!

However, after giving birth to two beautiful girls, the life I imagined and the life I knew diverged and I took the road more traveled. Sorry Mr. Frost! But after a combined total of 96 hours of labor, umpteen ounces of pitocin and an epidural that went in like a sledgehammer hitting an ice pick, I decided two kids were enough. After being enveloped in the chaos that is raising kids, I decided two kids were more than enough!

Six years later, I changed my mind on this day. Not because my hubby and I weren’t completely thrilled and content with our two daughters, but because we wanted to live the life we imagined when we were dating. We imagined having four kids.

So seven years after our second child was born we welcomed our third daughter to the family! And the life we lived blossomed and the life we imagined drew nearer.

But of course we couldn’t stop with just three! Even though three kids can definitely be considered a “large family,” we wanted our third child to have a sibling close in age so she wouldn’t feel like an only child when her older sisters moved out. (Sniff. Sniff.) And again, we imagined having four kids!

And now we do. I’m pregnant with our fourth child . . . our last child . . . our life as we imagined child. But if you peeked in the sidebar, you knew that already!

Well the first day of school has come and gone. And with that went all the excitement that caused my daughters to be up and ready for school without any prompting.

While they still enjoy going to school, getting them out the door started taking some combination of nagging, scolding, reminding, and of course rushing. It got to the point where even I was sick of listening to myself ask the same questions every day.

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“Did you make your bed?”

“Did you put your lunch in your backpack?”

Ugh.

I had to find a way to dial down my nag-o-meter! While I know that we all need to remind our kids to do things, too much nagging is just background noise. So being the Type A mommy that I am (for those of you Type B’s who go with the flow, that means I’m excessively organized and desperately rely on lists to get things done!) I decided to make my kids a morning “To Do” list. Yes, I even typed it. Okay, okay . . . in the interest of full disclosure, I even made two lists. An upstairs list and a downstairs list. (Can you say Type A+? Unfortunately, this is one time when an A+ isn’t such a good thing! But hey, it’s who I am and I’m trying to use it to my advantage to stop nagging.)

I put the upstairs list on their bulletin boards and the downstairs list on the fridge. Now they read what they need to do and my only question is “Did you do your list?” I guess technically, I should ask “Did you do your LISTS?” but you get the idea! Either way, I’m nagging, scolding, reminding and even rushing less. And that’s a good thing.

Such a good thing that, as a School Counselor, I advise my parents to do something similar when they come to me saying their mornings are so stressful because they can’t get their kids in gear. For parents of children who aren’t reading yet, I provide a morning list with pictures. For parents who think I’m an organizational freak, you’re right, but it works!

I’m a certified School Counselor who works with students on various issues including anger management, social skills, anxiety, divorce, self-esteem, study skills, impulsivity and bullying. If you have any parenting or school issues that you would like me to address, please leave me a comment. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have in my weekly Ask the School Counselor segment.

I have to admit I’m a little behind the times when it comes to blogging . . . and well fashion and hairstyles, but I digress. I just came back from the BlogWorldExpo and I’m convinced I’m the only blogger on the planet who doesn’t own a laptop. However, I learned from a few of my fellow Sparkplugging writers, I’m not the only one who seems to be missing the boat on Twitter. (No, Jessica! I absolutely do not mean you . . . you Twitter phenom! You really do know something I need to know!)

That said I’ve researched a few tools to help me on Twitter.

Tools? You mean like a Blackberry?

No, I don’t have one of those either. I am thinking of investing in a cell phone though.

Just kidding! I’m not completely in the dark ages.

What I mean is that I need help keeping up with Twitter. It overwhelms me. There’s just so many tweets! My head starts to spin when I try and keep track of who is talking to whom. So like anything I do, I need to get organized. That’s why I was happy to discover TweetDeck and Crowdstatus. (While these tools may be old news to some of you, I suspect some of my fellow newbies haven’t heard of them.)

With both Tweetdeck and Crowdstatus, you can organize the people you follow into groups. That way it’s more manageable to keep up with the conversation. For example, I created a group in Tweetdeck of all the people who write for Sparkplugging.com. Not only does this group help me keep up with the conversation, it makes me more inclined to join the conversation. Which, you know, IS THE WHOLE POINT OF TWITTER! Thus my problem to date. I’ve been sitting on the sidelines. Watching from afar. Lurking. It’s not that I haven’t tried jumping in, but like a Sparkplugging friend shared, when I did and got no response it felt like the entire table of cool kids in the cafeteria stopped talking and got up and left! Clearly, I have issues from high school!

Speaking of high school, I also found a site that tells you what grade you have on Twitter. Not that you can flunk out of Twitter! But TwitterGrader.com can tell you how you’re doing with it. Specifically, it reviews your profile, who’s following you, how often you update and calculates a grade and a ranking for you. Considering my ignorance with Twitter, I was pleasantly surprised I received a passing grade! Well, barely. I received a grade of 69 and a ranking of 9,621 out of 32,777. Could be worse! But now that I’ve created small discussion groups for myself, I’m sure I’ll get a B in Twitter 101 in no time!

If there are more Twitter tools, please share them with me! I need all the help I can get.

I know I haven’t posted in a week, but I do have a great excuse reason! Epson sponsored the Sparkplugging.com team to go to the BlogWorldExpo in Las Vegas this past weekend. How cool is that! I know cool for me, not for you, and I shouldn’t rub it in. But indeed there is something Epson is doing that is cool for you too!

Epson is giving away one of their WorkForce 600 All-in-One printers! So if you’re in the market for a state of the art all-in-one printer, or just like anything free, head on over to Momsational and see how you can enter to win!

As a School Counselor and mother of three, I believe it is vital that parents, educators and others in the community help children become strong, confident, compassionate leaders. Though I admit this is no easy task. It takes patience, persistence and plenty of tools. That’s why I am pleased to share with you a new book by a fellow School Counselor, Kelly Curtis.

Kelly’s book, Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things provides not only inspirational anecdotes, but specific strategies and activities to help cultivate and motivate the young people in our lives. While heavily influenced by the Search Institute’s Developmental Assets framework, which consists of 40 “building blocks” that help “influence choices young people make and help them become caring, responsible adults,” Empowering Youth focuses on the following four Empowerment Assets:

When a Community Values Youth

Treating Youth as Valued Resources

Serving the Needs of Others

Ensuring a Safe World for Young People

So if you’re a parent, educator or just know a young person, I highly recommend you read Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things. And to help get this wonderful resource out into the community, I’m giving away three copies on Momsational! So head on over there and leave a comment to enter to win a free copy of this valuable book.

Kelly Curtis, M.S., is a School Counselor, writer, speaker, and believer in the power of the Developmental Asset approach. She is the founder of Empowering Youth, Inc., which publishes positive youth development curricula, including the SPARK Peer Tutoring Handbook and Training Manual, and Hidden Treasure of Assets and Career Expedition board games. Kelly writes regularly about her experiences with children, parenthood, and family travel on her blog, Pass the Torch.

Here is the second post in my series on what famous people have to say about work life balance. Yes, even the multi-million dollar celebrities struggle with this issue! How, when they can afford to hire a housecleaner, personal chef, landscaper, nanny, chauffeur, and personal trainer . . . I DON’T KNOW! But evidently they do.

Anyway, here’s what these famous people have to say about balancing parenting and their careers:

Reese Witherspoon, a movie actress and single mom with two kids, says “It’s a lot of balance and a lot of really hard decision making.”

Faith Hill is a country singer married to Tim McGraw with three kids. She says “There’s no secret when it comes to juggling career and motherhood. At the end of the day, I just throw my feet up on the couch and say, ‘God, that was a long day! But somehow it all worked.’ There are days when everyone is fussy, fighting and late. Gracie has long hair, and sometimes it’s such a fight to brush it in the morning and get her ready for school. But I think about the days when she’ll be too big and tall. She won’t ever let me brush her hair then, so I enjoy the little moments now even though they’re not perfect.”

Jennifer Garner is a movie actress married to Ben Affleck. They have one child. She says “I’m trying to juggle it all, but it’s hard. I just had a year off where I put every spoonful of food into Violet’s mouth. Now I’m working and though I’m usually with her more hours than not, some days I just can’t be. That’s hard for me, and for the first time, my daughter. Luckily my husband is a true partner, and he picks up where I leave off.”

Angelina Jolie is a movie actress married to Brad Pitt. They have six kids. She says “I think if you love what you do, and you love the choices you’ve made in your life, somehow that drives you forward to enjoy it all. Even the chaos, even the exhaustion of it, and even when it seems out of balance.”

Naomi Watts is a movie actress engaged to Liev Schreiber. They have one child and one on the way. She says “I’ve got friends who have given everything to be there for their family, but I’ve always wondered, are they at peace with themselves? I think balancing career and family is just one of those things you have to work out as you go along.”

Ryan Phillippe is an actor who used to be married to Reese Witherspoon. He has two kids. He says “I have not found balance in my life yet.”

If you’re interested in what Kyra Sedgwick, Brooke Shields, Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Jessica Parker and Patrick Dempsey had to say about work life balance, check out Work Life Balance Quotes from Famous People: Volume 1.