Laughing out loud a bit right now. After getting up with all three of my children last night at different times . . . I started my day on a high note with a gym workout, where I convinced myself I'll train for a marathon in 2 months. Those endorphins will make you come up with some wacko plans!
Next, I went home and made lunch for the kids, and watched sticky lemonade spill onto the freshly scrubbed floor. . . the best laid plans, and mops - ha! The babysitter arrived, because I had a doctor's appointment - oh, wow, is there a rare form of Alzheimer's just for mothers? The doctor's appointments on the calendar are tomorrow, Thursday and next Monday. . . Santa can you bring me a blackberry or an iPhone to organize all this chaos : )Budget Smudget - come on man, you're SANTA! Laughing out loud. . . Instead, I head to the mall to select those photos I was suppose to select last night of my wee precious children.
Next, I return home to a sleeping crew who awake just as the babysitter exits. Dinner time was so sweet, even little Emme dined with us - or nursed, I should say. For our after dinner entertainment, Clayton wanted to read "Green Eggs and Ham" to Grace, Emma, and I.We were all snuggled up on the couch with the evening sunset cascading over our shoulders, Clayton reading, and Grace and Emma on my lap. That is one of those moments I want to capture, bottle up, and keep forever. A moment, when I feel like the luckiest of women! Sheer joy!
Today was date night - when the babysitter arrived she asked if I knew we had a swarm of dragon flies in the driveway. Strange. Even stranger when I back out and see that these dragon flies are the size of hummingbirds - literally! The bugs are HUGE - it is a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." What in the world??
Tonight is the first night of Tyler and my sand volleyball league. But, as with some other date nights, Tyler is busy at the hospital. So, I go get the sopping wet sand between my toes solo.
When the 3 games are over, still no word from my man. I head to Walmart to buy the slew of grocery's we need and at check out end up behind a gal buying only one item - a Dell computer. Score - as the other lines are, in the words of Buzz Lightyear, stretching "to infinity and beyond!" RING RING - my babysitter calls, asking if I'll be home soon, as the baby is ready to nurse. I say yes, I'm just checking out now.
Score on picking the best check out aisle - WRONG!!! The Walmart check out clerk has endurance, I'll give her that - maybe she should run that marathon I talked myself into this morning. She scans the same 3 scan bars for about 15 minutes straight - you'd think that after the first few swipes, you'd figure out that they were not going to work. Well,this clerk is quite the athlete. After 15 minutes pass, she hoists the computer out of the cart, complete with the grunts of a heavy weight champion, and onto the aisles conveyor belt.
Enter in about 10 more minutes and lots of helpful fellow employees. Exit the lady with the heaping cart the next aisle over, the one that there was NO WAY I was going to get stuck behind. I fidget trying to be patient, and thinking about tiny Emma needing to nurse.
I get home, and carry all ten grocery bags in with my Mommy warrior strength. Then, nurse Emma. Tyler is home and we go get some quick fast food, and grab a meal for our babysitter too.
Now that is romance with a capital R baby! Date night at it's finest : )Somehow, it is enough though to know that the intention was there, that we had tried to make time to play volleyball and spend a couple hours together. It may have actually been 20 minutes, but hey, we'll take it! As we ordered our fast food to go, Tyler let me know he loved me by saying "let's eat it here, it won't take that long and we can talk a minute." The way he looked at me as we sat over our $10 meal, made all the surrounding winds of chaos so worth it. In the words of Diamond Rio, "What a beautiful mess I'm in."
We rush home and hand our sitter the cash for her 2 hours of service. Tyler finishes up notes from work and goes straight to bed, as he has to leave for work around 5am for the operating room. I check my email, post on my blog, and stand staring over our three children before I finally give each last one a kiss . . . and wake Emma to nurse one last time. This is our house that love built. . . not quite The Walton's or The Brady Bunch, but it is ours!
