My life with 3 kids 3 and under – a normal day, well there are no normal days. It is not that any one thing is terrible, but the combination of things makes me feel like I almost constantly live in the middle of a tornado. So today for example, this morning Brian brings James downstairs and Sophia is in our room, but Charlotte was not yet quite awake. I was happy to only have to fix one kid breakfast so James and I head into the kitchen, just as I am getting So by started Charlotte begins crying upstairs and the baby is crying in my room. I pick up the baby, give her a paci and set her into the swing. As I pass thru the kitchen James is yelling that he is hungry, but I tell him to wait and go up and get Charlotte so I can fix breakfast for them both at the same time. As soon as I get upstairs the baby starts crying again, as soon as I get back downstairs, put Charlotte down so I can pick up the baby, Charlotte is not in the mood to walk and starts crying that she wants me to pick her up. This whole time James is still yelling that he is hungry.
Ok, I get the baby settled, I get James some eggs and Charlotte some cereal and as soon as I sit down with the baby both big kids want apple sauce- I know for breakfast, but I said they could. So I fix 2 bowls of applesauce while holding the baby in my arms leaning the bottle on my cheek so I can have one hand free. James says he wants to help me and carry his to the table, he says he will be careful. I am a little worried but at the same time Charlotte is chanting “APPLESAUCE!!” and I am still feeding the baby. I watched him almost the whole way- just as he gets to his seat he trips and spills applesauce all over the place, his chair, the wall and of course the floor. Of course that was also the last of the applesauce so he then he cried that there was not any more applesauce!
After cleaning up that mess and then watching a movie with the kids, I put Charlotte up for a nap and James insisted on sleeping with me and Sophia. He fell asleep, Sophia woke up so I left the room to feed her, about 30 minutes later I hear him crying that he had an accident on my bed! Oh great, that is just what I wanted to do wash sheets and bathe him in the middle of the day.
So I get him bathed get Charlotte back down from her nap, try to finish feeding this baby- poor girl hardly ever gets a continuous feeding - and of course everyone is hungry AGAIN!
This time the item we are cleaning up is peanut butter- Charlotte and James managed to get peanut butter all over our dining room and all over themselves claiming they were “sharing peanut butter:” After cleaning that up and heading back into the living room to get them settled and playing with something they were supposed to be playing with, James pees on the living room floor (right after I started writing this entry), so I had to stop what I was doing, throw him in the tub and clean up the floor only for Charlotte to then pee on the bathroom floor while I was bathing James.
I put the baby on the bed and decided to try to finish writing while the kids were in the bathtub, I heard a lot of splashing around and then water hitting the tile floor and went in to see both kids laughing and using cups to pour water out of the tub.
I wish I would have done time stamps of putting this computer down and picking it back up as I wrote this (but who has time for that) because as if I did not already have enough to do, I thought it would be great to do a blog entry to show everyone what a day in my life is like. I started this entry right before fixing them the peanut butter, and was planning to write about my day yesterday, but as I wrote the first sentence and the peanut butter was being wiped on my floor decided it had been a little crazy today so I thought I would use real time activities and my kids did not leave me without anything to write! I have been interrupted writing this with each moment as it happens.. gotten up at least 45 times, sang songs on demand and fed, changed the baby at least 2ce, had 2 separate peeing accidents one with each big kid, baths, cleaned up the bathroom from the splashing and listened to each kid see who can scream louder.
This was all before 4 pm, hopefully our events will taper off for the end of the day. I have to fix dinner and get them to bed and then I will only have one kid to manage into the wee hours of the night. I can barely get the necessities done so when these little “accidents happen I get more and more set back on things that should get done. Plus all of these things add up to complete exhaustion. All of this is written after nights of little or no sleep!! Sophia does not sleep real great due to her gas troubles so she sometimes keeps us up all night long, and sometimes one or both of the other kids get up in the middle of the night due to nightmares or teething or whatever.
Now it is 5:15 and I need to start dinner and get these kids to bed. Lord, please help it go smoothly as I have already had enough activity for the day.
As my neice says, "they are cute kids, but they are A LOT of work!"
