When Did You Know????

I was thinking a couple of weeks ago. Do you ever have those moments when in just an instance you get a glimpse of your surroundings and think, "how in the world did I get here?"

Where did these children come from? Wasn't I just driving down the streets of SL as a Senior in high school on the look out for "the guys?" 

I blinked.

And now I'm here?

And now I am thinking? I know exactly when it happened. I still remember the smell of the old carpet in our basement apartment on Gilmer Drive. I remember my red Toyota Corolla. With one car seat in the back. I was bringing my newborn son home from doing errands. I was completely famished. If anyone knows me well, they know if my blood sugar gets low...get me something to eat. I felt depleted. I needed food, STAT. But there he was. Crying. Starving. Needing food. It was then. In that instant. I KNEW I was a mom. I took him out of his car seat, and of course, he was fed first.
I realized my new calling in life. I had given up a part of myself. I was never to think of myself first ever again. Never. Ever.
It's been nine years. I thought of my mom. She has been a mom nearly 40 years. In 40 years she has never had plans that could not be changed in an instant if one of her children needed her. She has never spent her money without first thinking of what her children needed. And she has never fed herself first, if her children (or grandchildren) are in the house.
I wonder when she knew?
There will never be a mud fight big enough to keep me from loving those little parts of myself called my children. There will never be enough times when I step on lego pieces in the middle of the night to keep me from smiling. How can I be mad?
They are me. And they are the best part of me. The part of me that will always come first.