Thursday, February 05, 2009

Children

My grandmother once made my mother a cross stitch wall hanging that said "Children are a handful sometimes, a heart full at all times." Sometimes I think of that old wall hanging when people tell me that I've got my hands full. And sometimes I am surprised at how I can go from feeling that they are a handful to just feeling that they make my heart full. And it can even change minute by minute.

Take Tuesday, for example. Tuesday started out with Matthew telling me that their toilet was clogged. Sarah and Leila flushed a rubber ducky. Or two. Then my computer crashed. Water was spilled all over the floor in the kitchen. We missed our appointment to take the van in to the shop. I was still in my pajamas at lunch. Just one thing after another!

When I put the girls down for their nap Sarah was yelling for me. Someone is always yelling and if they aren't crying, I usually ignore it. So I didn't go in there. The yelling stopped but I could hear the girls talking from inside their crib tents. I went in to quiet them down and was horrified to see Sarah covered in blood. She had a bloody nose, a cut on her gums, a loose front tooth, and she'd torn her labial frenulum. How did she do this while still inside her bed? I have no idea. And she wasn't even crying!

Whenever I have a day like Tuesday I know things have to get better. And they did. A friend came to watch the babies so I could clean Sarah up and clean up the bloody bed. I got some other chores done. And then another friend brought over pizzas and our kids (9 of them ages 6 and under) played. Then we made cookies for dessert. I went to bed feeling better about everything. (Cookies can do that to you! The rum probably helped too.)

Yesterday was a great day. It made up for the suckiness of the previous day and restored my faith in my parenting abilities. I'd be pretty pathetic if I couldn't handle 6 kids, considering that octuplet mom is the single mother of 14 kids. Geez, I should just suck it up and deal!

Just for fun, here's a little play on words.

CHILDREN...

C is for the chaos. Because no matter how many children you have, you know there will be a little bit of chaos from time to time. It's a given.

H is for the happiness. Because if they didn't make us happy, we wouldn't keep having them, right? They always know how to make us happy.

I is for the imagination. When my kids have a sleepover on the living room floor or make a pirate ship out of couch cushions, I can see their little minds at work. They are always creating, imagining, dreaming, and exploring. They keep me young, just like Santa said.

L is for the laughter. A house with children is a house full of laughter. Sometimes I laugh so hard I cry. Sometimes I laugh to keep from crying. Either way, we laugh a lot.
D is for the drama. What fun would life be without a little drama? A clogged toilet, a bloody face, or a busted computer. We gotta have a little bit of drama just to keep things interesting.
R is for the rivalry. I already know that I am not the only one who deals with this on a daily basis. Sibling rivalry is the bane of my existence right now. "He touched me!" "She has my toy!" "He looked at me." It's enough to make me google "tranquilizer darts for kids."
E is for exhaustion. As in me. And sometimes them. But mostly me.
N is for naughtiness. Because we always have a little bit of that around here too. The best part of the naughty behavior is just watching their faces when they know they're busted. Love it.

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