TGINF!

Thank Goodness It's Not Friday!

I have no idea how full-time moms with three or more kids at home do it. Maybe it's our parenting style, or our kid's personalities, or two boys, or two boys two years apart from each other, or the toys they have to play with, or the toys they don't have to play with, or what they ate for breakfast, or what they didn't eat for breakfast. Or maybe it really is just.this.hard. I can't put my finger on it.

I haven't figured out how to keep our three little kids all happy at the same time for, oh, more than a few consecutive minutes (and let's not mince words here. when I say "all three" I mean "the boys"). While that's a bit of an exaggeration - some days do actually go remarkably smooth given what they had for breakfast - yesterday afternoon was not an exaggeration. I'm pretty surprised I have any hair left on my head today given how much I pulled out yesterday.

Max and Otto have been too crabby with each other too much of the time. I don't know if it's differences or similarities in their personalities causing the conflict. Maybe sibling rivalry. Maybe Otto's difficulties saying what he wants resulting in a lot of physical attacks. I feel like I'm constantly trying different tactics to get them to settle down, but nothing was working yesterday. I'm pretty sure, looking back on it, that I should have just bundled everyone up and got us outside despite the gross weather. Sometimes their behavior is night and day whether we're inside the house or outside.

Wren is a good litmus test. Even when I think the boys are being too wild, she's usually her happiest. For some reason they make her belly laugh. Whether in my lap, on the floor or in her Exersaucer, her head is on a swivel, just giggling as the tasmanian devils take everything, EVERYTHING out to build forts, towers, boats... ANYTHING that requires EVERYTHING.

Her happiness with her brother's wild sides is the little lighthouse I keep my eye on when the seas start to get stormy. If her light it shining, I stay a bit calmer. It's like she's telling me "That's what they do. They're boys (thank you Pinterest for helping define it "Boys. Noise with dirt on it."). Don't worry, Mama, when I can walk (approaching much too quickly!) I'll be able to hold my own. AND, I'll invite you to sit down and relax at a nice refined tea party once in awhile."

But yesterday afternoon they went from deconstructing things in order to reconstruct them, to just plain destructing. I've always been fine with taking things apart because they're usually doing it to figure out how to put them back together. By about 3pm they had no interest in being constructive. And even Wren wasn't laughing anymore. She could tell that they weren't happily and loudly playing together, but rather they were fighting (or ganging up on mom).

But today's a new day. Not Friday. With an extra set of hands at home to help me out. So we'll give it a go again. And smirk happily at each other when we can actually hear ourselves talking to each other. And close our eyes, look to the sky, and shake our heads when we can't.