I Am So Tired Right Now

Today hubby and I took the kids over to some dear friends' house so that hubby could help his buddy haul a bunch of heavy stuff out of their basement and to the dump. Their house is fun; playground, good food, toys galore.... And with seven children (including our two) it was also very busy! But, nonetheless, when my friend announced that she needed to take her oldest child to a music lesson at the same time the guys planned on making their run to the dump, I offered to hold down the fort with the remaining six children. Music lessons are what-- a half an hour? Me, alone with 6 children for 30 minutes.... For some reason I thought I was capable of this.

At first it was a cake walk. The baby was napping, the two older children were busying themselves with a game, and the three "little" guys were running around the backyard having a grand ol' time. I'm good, I thought-- really good. I should have, like, a couple more kids or something because I've got this whole mom thing down. At some point in my little fantasy the baby started crying (apparently she's normally a marathon napper-- just not while I'm there) and I went in to check on her. And...ewww...bad smells were emanating from the crib. I picked her up and sure enough; poopy diaper. That wakes 'em up every time, dangit! I changed her and came walking down the hall to dispose of the offending diaper when I heard a sound that went a little something like this: CRASH! I looked over to see my friend's 3-year old standing amidst a pool of shattered glass and water. He'd come in for a drink and accidentally knocked over the glass of water on to the tiled kitchen floor. The other boys rushed in to check the scene out and one of them walked right into the shards.

"Nobody move! You guys all need to stay out of the kitchen while I clean this up!" I said in my sweetest serious voice. But it was too late-- the little guy's foot was bleeding. I sat him down and checked it out-- fortunately it looked pretty minor. So I handed the baby off to her older brother and tracked down some rags to sop up the water so I could then sweep. The glass seemed to have shattered in millions of microscopic slivers and spread to the four corners of the kitchen. Amazing. Truly amazing! And keeping the curious children away from the hazard zone was a delightful battle.

After I got that cleaned up (and warned the children that shoes were now a requirement inside the house-- just in case) the 3-year old needed to go potty...now! We rushed to the bathroom and I began to lift up the toilet seat. "No," he said, "I sit". Oh, dear. I sat him down and realized just in time that he wasn't pointing his little drain pipe down. I cringed, and then poked my finger on it before the flow began. Phew! That was a close one! And awkward....

Then there was more crying. Who's crying now?? I ran out to see the older boys getting into it a bit. Something about spitting.... TV? Who wants to watch TV!? We found a show on Nickelodeon and...ahhhhhh. Relief. I looked at the clock-- it had been 2 hours since the other three adults had left. 2 hours?? What happened to 30 minutes? I rang hubby's cell phone and he informed me they were at Starbucks. Starbucks. Somebody was going to die, because I was going to murder them.

I think I sat in a stupor on the way home. Wow. I have a new appreciation for our friends. Somebody should give them a trophy or something, because they are both very sane, intelligent, good-natured people. On my best day I'm not sane, intelligent or good-natured (just ask hubby)-- and I have less than half the amount of children they have.

So anyway, hubby isn't so sure about the vasectomy he's scheduled for on Friday. But I am. I am very, very sure.