Sanity

Sanity, oh sanity, wherefor art thou sanity?    Is it bad that I wanted to take a long, hot shower this morning, just so I could escape for a few minutes and drown out the sound of both kids crying and screaming so I could calm down and find my cool again? Okay, so that isn't the ONLY reason. I also wanted to wash away the stickiness and stinkiness from the gazillion (twelve-ish) times I was spit up on since my last shower (last night). It's not pretty, but it's the harsh reality these days. It's 2:15 pm and I finally have both kids bathed and dressed in clothes. Well, they were both dressed... Gavin is in his undies again because he completely soaked his clothes while "helping" me give Addison her bath so his clothes are in the dryer and he is in my bed, trying his very best to avoid falling asleep. We have had melt-down after melt-down today. It's not completely his fault, I know much of it is me. I know that I have zero patience because I am overtired, stressing about returning to work and figuring out daycare, and overwhelmed by how hard it seems to be to just get dressed and out the door each day. It seems every time I turn around I find spit-up running down my shirt and in my hair, I start getting dressed and then begin to think I might smell funny, so I take another shower, and before I know it I'm late again for wherever I'm supposed to be. I haven't seen my make-up pouch in days and have no idea where it might be, so I've been sans makeup all week and I think Christmas was the last time I actually used my flat-iron on my hair. Since then I've been sporting this lovely ratty ponytail. Yep, it's glamorous!

It may sound like I am complaining, but I am not. If you could hear my voice as I type this (because I DO speak as I type, of course) you'd be laughing as hard as I am. It's hilarious in a slightly disturbing kind of way. My shirts smell like sour milk and my underarms smell like a locker room, and although I wish I had a great routine all figured out and carefully planned my shower, dressing, hair-doing, and make-up applying for when both kids were happily entertaining themselves or napping, I really wouldn't have it any other way. Really. Truly.

I have two healthy kids, a warm and cozy home (oh poop! I forgot to put wood in the stove again today! Hold on! Gotta run downstairs and do that!!)

Close call! Thefire was ALMOST out! Got it going nice and hot again. Oh, and by the time I came back upstairs, both kids had fallen asleep. Whew!

Now... where was I? Oh yes... two healthy kids, a cozy home, a really great husband who took Addison out of our bedroom in the middle of the night when she wouldn't go back to sleep so that I could sleep, a completely messy house due to all of the wonderful Christmas gifts we received and haven't found places for yet... I am blessed. I know these days of spit-up and crying and poopy diapers and gas drops will go by so quickly and will be gone before I know it. Even these days of bossiness, testing, silliness, wild craziness, and button-pushing from Gavin will be over so quickly and I know I will miss his silliness, his made-up words, his funny faces, his determination and independence. I know I'll miss them, because I do miss the days when he was a baby and when I look back on them I remember the long days of just snuggling and his sweet milky breath and his warm little body. Only four years later I have forgotten the crying and the spit-up and the poop and how I tired I was and how precious showers were and how much I just wanted to get dressed and go out in public with my hair done and make-up on. I had forgotten all of that so quickly... until Addison came along. So, I'm trying my best to enjoy these days at home with these two kiddos. I wasn't enjoying it this morning, I will admit. I was screaming at Gavin - I had become scary Mom. I was trying to re-organize his room to make space for the new toys from Christmas and his birthday and I was so quickly frustrated because he wanted to play with every single toy I took out to move. Of course he did. Just seeing something he hasn't played with in a while is like an invitation to play with it. He undid everything I did. Addison started crying. I created a disaster and got grouchy and should have known better than to try to reorganize and go through toys while Gavin was here. He wanted to keep everything - literally. I tried to throw out a plastic wrapper from some foldable storage cubes and he wanted to keep it. He wants to keep everything these days and particularly, he wants to keep it in his room. He's become a bit of a hoarder, taking Christmas ornaments into his room, his artwork that I have had hanging around the house, etc. He wants it all in his room. This morning he found (and kept) a Box Elder bug. It was crawling in my bedroom and he picked it up and let it crawl all over his hands and when I suggested he go put it outside, he said "No! I'm gonna keep it!" and he took it to his room and carefully placed it in his 'treasure chest' full of coins that he got from Grandma and Grandpa J for his birthday. It's still there, I checked a few minutes ago. It's been in there for a good 5 hours now.

We were going to go to Target today. I have a few returns to make, need to buy diapers, etc. It shouldn't be that tough. My Mom had ten children and I know that occasionally (although not very often) we actually left the house and went places. I know we all left the house at least once a week for church. I can't even seem to make that happen with two kids! I do take Gavin to preschool during the week, so two or three days I get out with both kids and while Gavin is at school, Addison and I usually do the grocery shopping, or run to Target, or do other errands. But do you think I could get us to Target today? Nope! First of all, Gavin didn't want to go anywhere... didn't want to get dressed, didn't want to go outside, didn't want to eat lunch. I finally got him dressed (after tears and a time out and more tears), and then got Addison bathed and dressed and then we were back to square one with Gavin because his clothes got all wet during Addison's bath. After more tears, I decided what we really needed were naps. Naps for ALL of us! I probably needed it the most because I was the most impatient, the most grouchy. Gavin was the most emotional, quick to melt-down. Addison was just urpy, burpy, and tooty. So, instead of getting Gavin dressed again I sent him to bed. He fought the nap for nearly two hours, telling me he couldn't close his eyes because they just wouldn't close. Telling me he wasn't tired. "Well, I AM tired, but I'm just TOO tired, so I can't even sleep because I'm too tired" he said. He was in and out of bed, arguing that if I was up, he could be up. He was telling me when Addison was crying and telling me that he couldn't sleep because Addison was crying. Goodness, he was trying my patience. Oh, who am I kidding, there was no patience left! And then while I was putting wood in the stove, he finally fell asleep. Both kids are sleeping now and I know I should be too, but I also know it's been six weeks since I have blogged. Six weeks. Eek.

Let's hope it's not another six weeks between today's post and the next one!