A snapshot of life...

Warning: The following post is not intended to garner a lot of pity and sympathy (although any is welcomed and appreciated!), but rather to record a snapshot of life for me and the kids to look back on and smile. :o)

At 6:15am today...after the sixth consecutive night of only 4 hours of sleep (one of which was unintentionally spent in the recliner) I was awakened by the simultaneous cries of a hungry newborn and a bawling toddler who was crawling out of her room on her hands and knees because her foot hurt. Apparently, after running around barefoot in the backyard of a friend's house the night before she had gotten a sliver in the bottom of her foot that was now red and painful. It took both Austin & I to hold her down and dig it out. She hobbled around the rest of the morning with sporadic crying fits but forgot about it for the most part by mid-afternoon.

At 10:00am today...after starting the day almost 4 hours earlier, we were finally ready to leave the house and run errands with everyone fed, dressed and bathed. During the short drive I had to blindly replace the pacifier in a moving target of a mouth while simultaneously handing out books to look at and navigating the stoplights of Highway 63 going through downtown Waterloo.

At 4:00pm today...I had a tired, cranky newborn who wouldn't nurse and wouldn't fall asleep. He was in his second outfit of the day because the first had been soaked through an hour earlier. I was also in my second shirt of the day because the first had been spit up on an hour before that. I had a stubborn toddler who had been running around the house wearing nothing but a "Dora" pull-up for the last 45 minutes because she insisted she "Don't like clothes!" and "Want to wear flower jammies." I had taken the jammies away, but was not able to wrestle clothes back on because of the screaming baby in my arms. After a while said toddler came down the stairs wearing this. I think someone has watched a little too much Star Wars with Daddy lately! ;o)

The kitchen was a disaster. The remains of a fruit punch juice box was puddled on the kitchen table after the straw had been prematurely removed. The dishwasher was half emptied with a sink full of dishes waiting to be loaded. I had a wonderful plan for a delicious supper but no strategy for actually getting it put together and on the table in time. I was seriously considering ditching the whole idea and sticking in the frozen pizzas we didn't eat this weekend. There was a still half-full can of Diet Cherry Coke in the fridge that I had started enjoying at one point during the afternoon and desperately need the remaining caffeine content, not to mention the brownie I hadn't gotten to at snack time. There was a load of laundry in every stage of the process except the folded and put away part. And my large box of 100+ birth announcements had just arrived in the mail and was sitting on the counter staring at me, daring me to figure out when I'm going to address them all.

I was about ready to cry.

However, in the spirit of full disclosure, God is gracious and gives you what you need when you need it. Lincoln eventually fell asleep and napped in his crib for over 2 hours. I got Emily dressed again and even got a decent monthly picture taken on the 3rd try. Of course, it was 2 days late (I cheated and back-dated the post) and I bribed her with the promise of a brownie and chocolate milk only an hour before supper, but that gave me an excuse to eat not one, but two brownies myself along with the rest of that precious Diet Cherry Coke. :o) The table got wiped, the dishes got put away and the laundry eventually got done. I even managed to pull off the broiled salmon/rice/steamed broccoli dinner I had been planning, although it required removing the batteries out of two beeping smoke alarms in the middle of trying to nurse Lincoln! The birth announcements can wait.

How funny life can be. I know I will look back and smile about this stage of life because, like everything, "This too shall pass..."