Dinner and Martha

Oh, why does my life look like this at times???

Yesterday marked another “night shift” for T…which means very little “family time.” Therefore, I guard that precious two to three hours with my life.

2:15 MW and I are playing “go fish” on her bedroom floor, T3 is napping…T walks in, just out of bed, and dressed for the gym. MW pleads with him for one game of “go fish.” Twenty minutes later (of the SAME hand of “go fish”) the termite guy shows up for our yearly inspection…

We leave MW in her room for “rest time” (which it is ANYTHING BUT!) and we head outside to put another coat on the chalkboard while termite guy inspects. I finish a few minutes on the phone with my sis; the termite guy finishes his inspection, and T tells me that if he goes to the gym now, we won’t be able to eat dinner as a family…tough call…SKIP the gym! We NEED that time together! The kids NEED to see him! I NEED to see him!

So I spend the next forty-five minutes cranking out another yearbook proof, MW comes downstairs, convinced there are “buggies” on her feet and in her room…so the “deadly bug” saga continues…

I start dinner, which was a bit stressful. Trying to eat at 4:30 tends to be a little bit hard sometimes. The phone rings…it’s our neighbor who needs to borrow T’s air compressor and nail gun…fine, come by in the next thirty minutes…I’m throwing rice in the pan, T3 is crying, T and MW are in the garage pulling out the compressor and accessories. T comes in and gets T3…a few minutes to compose myself and our dinner…finally at 4:35 it’s almost on the table. We’re all rushing around trying to pour drinks and put forks on the table, etc. I mean, right here, I’m going, okay, I am so NOT the Proverbs 31 woman! Peace…is not reigning in my home and certainly not in my heart!

We sit down. I’m sweating and T is trying to be so patient. We’ve got to shovel the food in our mouths so he can leave by 5…MW says the prayer, which she decides to sing, of course prolonging things (again, my heart is SO in the “right” place – I’m thinking, “hurry!”), but she forgets the ending, so T and I jump in and end it for her…T3 is fussing and I’m trying to get his food off the plate and on the high chair tray…KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK…it’s our neighbor.

Taylor chimes in with, “I’m going to let you get it, Mama Bear.”

Come on in neighbor. He steps into the breakfast room and sees us all sitting there with our just served plates of hot food. T3 spots the neighbor and begins crying, make that, screaming! T excuses himself and takes neighbor outside to show him the compressor…T3 continues crying. I see that T is holding Bo Bear…maybe T3 saw Bo Bear and wants him and that’s why he’s screaming. Nope…By the way, at this point I’d held him, put him down to walk around, fed him off my plate, etc. NOTHING would calm him. Finally T comes back in. We all sit down once more and I realize I haven’t made T his coffee drink…so up I go again…make that drink, and sit back down. T3 continues to SCREAM! So I hold him and somewhere in the process of getting him out, or maybe it was of putting him back in the high chair, he kicks the tray off the chair and onto the floor, splattering beef tips and rice with gravy ALL OVER the floor, wall, and table cloth…of course the commotion makes him cry even harder. T says, “Just laugh. Honey, just laugh.” So we laugh…though mine was half hearted. T stands and says, “Sorry to leave you like this, but I’ve gotta go.” I stand, gathering screaming T3 in my arms so we can all walk T out to his car and wave goodbye, showering his truck with our blown kisses…he gets in the truck and spills his coffee drink all over his pants…”Just laugh. Honey, just laugh.” I tell him…hee hee…at 5:15 he pulled out of the driveway.

I walk back in the house…the kitchen is a disaster from making dinner…the counters have spills and drips enveloping their surfaces…there are near empty pans on the stove, the sink is full of dirty measuring cups, etc. Oh well, I just want to eat my dinner. I haven’t had but maybe two bites at this point. We enter the breakfast room…Scout had eaten up a good bit of the mess, but there was still a definite need for some elbow grease to get the rest cleaned. T3 continued to scream…I put him in the backpack…but he kept screaming. I could not take another second of it. I know myself and my sin too well. So I did the only thing left to do. I put him in his crib. I closed his bedroom door. I closed the doors to the breakfast room and to the living room. I sat down, in the midst of messy chaos, to eat my now cold dinner, but I could still hear him crying. My appetite was gone…so I cleared the dinner table and closed myself in the kitchen. I cranked up the music and set about cleaning and putting food away.

Thirty minutes later T3 was playing happily in his crib. I retrieved him and bathed both kids and then loaded them into the car. A cherry limeade from Sonic had become a “must.”

You know, I try really hard to relax and go with the flow, to roll with the punches, but last night, I just really wasn’t loving that chaos. I was nearing tears. I think I learned something, though, I have to start dinner earlier…and if that means sacrificing my freelance work, then so be it. It’s easy to laugh about it now, but man, in the midst of it, laughing was another thing… oh, to love the chaos!

On another note…MW is still TERRIFIED and thoroughly convinced she’s going to be eaten by “buggies.” I reminded her that T and I sprayed the inside and outside of the house so that any “buggies” that try to get in will die. To which she replied:

“I know that. You need to STOP doing that. You KILLED MARTHA!” (That is, Martha, the squished roach she found on the driveway…who is now her “used to be my bestest friend ever” friend…)

Hee, hee.

There are really sweet times, too. Last night the kids and I piled into the rocking chair and read a few books. MW and I curled up on the sofa and ate popcorn and drank our cherry limeades while we watched Ben Hur…T3 let me cradle him for a few seconds and he gave me the sweetest smile. We locked eyes and it was pure joy. Life with two little ones is CRAZY…crazy chaos, and crazy sweetness…crazy lessons, and crazy fun! Oh to enjoy every moment…to laugh at the spills…God give me the strength!