7 Quick Takes #22

What? It’s friday? Yah. Hey Jen & all you other Quick Takers!

This week has been stuck on Monday. I feel like I’ve blacked-out and OD’d on housewifery. Craig’s finishing up a particularly heavy load of course work for school and has been gone from sun up til about 10pm three nights this week. I know it could be worse, but it’s still tough.

–1–

I’ve seen it in Meme form before: “Trying to clean your house with toddlers present is like brushing your teeth with Oreos”
This week I really exerted myself to vault a few mountains of laundry and junk built up at Bumpy Bridge. I did a LOT and got nothing done.
The boys smelled it on me. Oh, you betchya they smelled it. And they responded in kind.

–2–

Collin is WALKING.
Walking!?
Walking.
Bizarre! He started on… one of those other days that isn’t Monday… and every morning, his little Energizer battery brain is recharged and he’s off! When he needs to get somewhere quick, it’s back to the spider monkey crawl. Once he’s arrived at his destination, UP and tinkering with whatever he can get his grabby, grubby little fingers on or into: Cabinets, drawers, fireplaces, edges of tables lined with plates full of food…

–3–

…and the toilet. Especially after spending an afternoon at Nan’s house (What the boys call my Mom) sloshing around in shallow, plastic storage boxes, I believe Collin reckons the toilet is just a fancy, indoor version of his personal pool. Don’t we all?

–4–

Silent but deadly: I’ll be in the process of serving my starving Lexington and Emmett -STARVING I TELL YOU- their second breakfast and I realize that the room is silent. Silence with three boys can mean two things: Eating is in progress, or, secret destruction is in progress.
This week, it’s both:
–the EATING! I cannot get over it! I feel like I haven’t been able to step foot out of the kitchen. I leave it to attempt some form of a chore and Emmett brings me a box of goldfish, an apple, a box of Cheerios, an empty sippy cup.
Where does it all go, if their belly is only supposed to be as big as their little balled up fists, WHERE DOES IT ALL GO? I am not a stingy rationer-of -meals, I promise you. But they want more!
Where is it going?
Where is it going.
My aunts, who raised multiple boys, have warned me about this phenomenon but I thought this sorcery didn’t start cropping up until high school years. My brain hurts.

Other Silent Deadliness:
Collin, was enjoying the toilet bowl water while I served apparently nothing to my older, hungry children (it had to have been nothing, because they came back wanting a third breakfast. Just absurd.)
Collin has learned to lift the lid and let the other hand do the splash dance.
After day one of catching him at the toilet 5 times, and halting him incalculable times en route, silence has my anxiety up the walls.
Dear Mrs. Bennett, I do, I DO have a little more compassion for your poor nerves, at last, at last. I get it.

–5–

Oh we bathed. Never ye fear. But that’s when Lexington and Emmett pick up the slack on the destructo end. Bathed baby on my hip, I am greeted in the living room with drawing paper strewn all over and marker ink… not on the paper..but the play table and TV shelves. These supplies that we’d picked up and put away not 15 minutes ago. Which is fine, tis but a minor blip on the chaos meter that courses through the house throughout the day. As an aside: Collin has also figured out how to open the trashcan, and GOLLY its contents are exciting. And MAN, big brother Emmett’s diaper changings are suddenly extremely interesting and neither man nor beast shall hold him back while mom is trying to one handedly wipe Emmett’s rear.

–6–

Oh. It’s dinner time? Well the sun is down, isn’t it. I tell yeh, that’s the darndest thing, that is. Well, here you go then, family:

Oap– Collin needs to haz dat plate.

Family meltdown.

–7–

That was actually a late night snack one of those nights ago. Here’s last night’s Mom dinner. Eaten standing up, over the pot. Remote at hand. Dictating television program from the stove.

But hey! Friday!
Next week I’m posting a personal Ode to the problem with NFP (Natural Family Planning) and having babies.
It just so happens to be National NFP Awareness week.
BY JOE! The stars must be aligned because I’m current. Or the ol’ HS moved me.  (psssst: Holy Spirit.)
Here’s a preview of what’s about to blow:

“…What I have to say now is something many of my loved ones don’t want to read.

I might get pregnant.
Yes, AGAIN.
FOUR!? Yes, four. FIVE?!? Yes, Five. If I am so blessed.

If I am so blessed…

Is that not quite upside down that I have to send out a warning about possibly getting pregnant again? Knowing my loved ones DON’T WANT TO HEAR IT? As if the happy news, the darling new life, my husband and I would feel so blessed to share -to include them into our life- will inconvenience them?”