Tiny Tornadoes, the Value in Sitting, and Other Things

Y’all.  I am alone.  YIPPEEEEE.  It has been a long week.  Here’s a quick recap.

We set a record for the longest running bedtime on Monday, clocking in at five hours to get all six of the girls to sleep.  For some reason the babies were completely out of sorts and kept waking up crying hard.  Maybe it was teeth?  Who knows.  But during that marathon bedtime stretch, I also learned that, joy of joy, school was cancelled on Tuesday for bad weather.  I had the same thought any parent has when you find out about an unexpected day off: oh crap.  What are we going to do?  Then I quickly poured myself a glass of wine, even though I had given it up for Lent (ambitious, perhaps?).  At that moment I felt like God would understand if I had a glass while preparing for a day alone, inside my messy house, with my six girls.  After that perfect glass, I adopted a monk’s approach and didn’t speak a single word to anyone because I had otherwise been drowning in noise for hours and hours.  My vow of silence was short lived because I found myself snoozing just 30 minutes later. 

Fast forward to Tuesday, our bad-weather-day.  My mom suggested with complete seriousness that I take the day to come up with a plan for the summer.  As she pointed out, summer was only three months away, and the babies will only get busier and busier.  Then I was facing not only the hours ahead of me, but the coming months.  Yikes.  I definitely needed a plan. 

While mulling that over, my neighbors and I had a block party of sorts, urging our kids to get ALL THEIR ENERGY OUT before the bad weather rolled in.  Then we all went inside and waited.  And waited.  And no bad weather came our way!  We were spared! However, the tiny tornadoes aka my children, wreaked havoc all over the house.  The days were long and exhausting when the babies were newborns and you know what’s different now?  Nothing!  HA!  The days are still long and exhausting, just in a different way.  Right now, it takes constant vigilance to make sure the babies don’t hurt themselves or each other.  They’re quite fond of purses and mardi gras beads, which they use to drag each other to the ground and clothesline each other.  You know how toddlers want what they want when they want it?  Now imagine having three wanting the same purse all at the same time.  It doesn't matter if I have three of the same purse, they choose one purse that they ALL want.  In addition to fighting over a pink purse (see pic below), they otherwise spent the day trying to climb up Lucy’s bunk beds and throwing all kinds of things into the toilet, including the tv remote (sorry if you’re here and you use it; it has been doused with Lysol).  At several times during the day, the big girls declared THEY WERE SO BORED and asked what they could do, despite the fact that we own enough toys to outfit armies of children.  I told them they could start cleaning or go sit and read, so then they found other things to do.

Of course there were lots of fun moments too.  The big girls played together nicely and created a tornado shelter for us in the bathroom.  I think they must’ve used 5 blankets and 10 pillows.  Lucy was insistent that we move her pet hamster to the safest place possible, so Brownie rode out the “storm” (I use that term loosely because the weather was fine) in the bathroom.  Thank God she was ok, that could’ve been bad. The big girls also had lots of fun swinging the babies around, dancing with them, showing them books, and hopping from one crib to the next.  It's always fun to see how excited they get to play with their baby sisters.      

Sweet, tired babies

"Hunkering down" in the hallway with all of Lucy's crafts

Libby and one of the favorite purses

Wednesday we got back into the groove of school.  5 of 6 girls went to school or Mom’s Day Out.  Sweet Abby had a fun day out with me.  She enjoyed every single second of being a single baby.  We went shopping together and then had lunch together.  Not a single cry or whine.  She was so happy to have all of my attention.  She basked in the glory of being my single baby.  It was fun.  

And that brings me to today.  I am alone!!!  I am alone alone alone!  The stars were aligned and the babies were all well so they went to Mom’s Day Out along with Emily.  Any time I’m alone I feel the overchoice of options weighing on me.  Do I get something done?  Do I run errands?  Do I organize all their clothes and the piles of stuff everywhere?  No, no, and no.  I sit.  I sit and enjoy the glorious silence and the fact that none of the 60 little fingers I created are touching me, needing me, demanding my attention.  So right now I’m sitting.  Listening to myself breathe.  Ignoring the messes.  Giving myself permission to do it all later.  Or  never.  One of the hardest things about being a mom is that no one will tell you—stop and sit.  Take a break.  So every once in a while—or really whenever you can—you have to say, no, now I am sitting.  So friends, now I sit. 

I hope you all have a fabulous Friday!