A New Respect for Single Mothers

Thank goodness for sisters. I do not believe I would have survived last week without them. Someone, probably Bruce, upon arrival home from his business trip to Kentucky, would have found me buried in cloth diapers and beer bottles, the children running amock. Actually...the cloth diaper part was partially true...

It wasn't just the random fussiness due to two teething 8-month-olds. It wasn't the constant bickering between the preteens. It wasn't Owen choking on a graham cracker...or Connor refusing to take naps. It wasn't Owen peeing on me...or Irelynn stripping and climbing into Connor's used bathwater while I was getting him dried off, having dumped the entire contents of a fairly new bottle of Mr. Bubble bubble bath into it. It wasn't even the brilliantly concocted idea of the preteens to hold a jumprope/dance off contest down in the basement resulting in the older girl falling, making me think I was going to have to drive to the ER due to a broken hand. (The hand turned out to be fine once feeling came back...but her arse was so sore she couldn't walk for a few hours.) Although it didn't help...it wasn't even the fact that I was running on nearly no sleep due to the twins' sudden sleep protest, and no adult overnight to help rock them to sleep. No, my friends...it was the fact that because I was alone...I had to be responsible...therefore, I had no beer.

The sheer amount of caffeine consumed over the course of those three days would have been enough to give any normal person severe heart palpitations and have them ricocheting off the walls. It merely kept me awake enough to remember to send the older children to school and prevent me from putting something other than formula in the twins' bottles.

Luckily during the day (and into the evening) I did have help from my sister and sister-in-law. I'm not sure what purpose I feel it served best: to assist me in juggling five children while still preparing meals and doing basic clean-up duties, or to witness, first hand, and account for the sheer insanity that takes place in our household. So to both of my sisters, I thank you whole-heartedly for your help.

My husband is home now and things have settled down. I do think I have him sufficiently scared enough to never want to have to leave me again...unintentional as it was...but he also is fully aware of how much I love and appreciate him (I hope.) I am now actually having time to sit and type on the computer...while enjoying an icy cold brew. Now, if only I could leave the state for a few days...