Empathy for Mommy--Costco was closed on New Year's Day. They have holiday hours posted all over the store, but for some reason they chose not to open for this particular holiday. Either way, that meant we needed to go today. I came home early so that my wife could go, and I was all to happy to take care of things for a couple of hours on my own. Little did I know the chaos that my wife lives through just before dinner time each day. Our son's quiet time is over by 2 pm or so, so he is back in the family room looking for things to do. I was looking forward to doing some activities together--we did manage to squeeze in cutting a beard out of paper for him to wear, complete with pipe cleaners to fasten them over his ears--but the girls woke up from their naps, and they woke up grumpy and clingy. I was able to get our little girl to go back to sleep for a little while and took the baby down for a bottle. She wouldn't let me do anything but hold her, and my poor son was trying to get my attention too. When our little girl woke up, I put a show on for the two oldest, strapped the baby in a high chair with veggie puffs, and began making dinner. All of this was a piece of cake compared to getting my son to set the table, getting my kids sat down to eat, and getting the food cut for the kids. Food is a very serious thing at my house, and not even the adults can stand to wait. Miraculously, the actual meal was peaceful, and although I was sweating by the time my wife came home, I felt a much greater appreciation for what she does in the afternoons alone and a much greater empathy for the feeling she sometimes gets that she isn't able to give the kids the attention they need, especially our little girl in the middle. Of course, she does more than meet their needs, because she's learned to let things go. I, on the other hand, would not survive long because I don't let anything go, which meant that by the time my wife came back home tonight, I felt like a piece of gum that had been chewed up and blown into a bubble so thin that I could have popped at any moment.
Why Are You Crying?--One thing--of many--that I'm having a hard time understanding is why our kids have evenings where they cry at the littlest things or nothing at all. Both of our girls were like that after their naps today. My son and I could hardly do anything without setting off our two little hair-trigger mines--of course, our son sometimes likes to push their buttons on purpose. It was clear that neither slept well, but neither would go back to bed. That's what I would do, but again, logic must be left at the door. What made it all worse was that when my wife came home they instantaneously flipped from grumpy to giddy. Of course, my wife has that effect on my too.
Three In A Bath--I don't know why, but something about having the three kids in the bath at once that made me nostalgic. It may be that seeing the three together was clear proof of how quickly they grow from infants to little boys and girls. The way they play together was also touching. They are so different developmentally, but they know how to have fun with each other and connect with each other despite that. Watching their three different sizes, personalities, and tendencies--our four-year old engineering with cups and water, our two-year old (2/3 the size of our four-year old) wreaking havoc, and our baby (1/2 the size of our two-year old) winding around with insatiable curiosity on her hands and knees in-between the older kids grabbing and biting everything she can lay her hands on--stopped me in my tracks as I was washing them. I couldn't help but enjoy the moment.
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