After a full day of chasing children, putting them on time-out and hearing them whine, complain and fight, I was ready to put them to bed and have an hour quiet veg time with Colt. Colt is often to the office late, and evenings (late evenings) are our time together. Needless to say, kids didn’t get to sleep quite as early as I would have liked, and after popping out of bed a couple of times and requests for water, stories, stuffed animals, etc. we finally crashed into bed totally exhausted. When my baby cried at 1:30 in the morning, I struggled to regain consciousness to change her diaper and nurse her. She looks up at me with huge eyes and wanted to be held. She never fell deep asleep and continued to make her little noises most all night long, waking up fully every hour. Completely exhausted, I stagger to the kitchen to have a glass of milk and find a mouse staring at me from the top shelf of our pantry. I stand there not believing my eyes at this little intruder as he (I really hope it’s not a she!!) climbs over everything. Now, mice and I are not great friends and instead of being able to whack them, I just end up screaming and being frozen into inactivity. Colt comes out and asks if everything is okay. No! There’s a mouse in the pantry!! We then find that the toilet is leaking, and spend some time in the wee hours of the morning trying to fix it. Just as I doze off and get into deep sleep again, Silver wakes up calling to me that she’s had an accident (she usually wakes up dry and usually wears a diaper to bed). Insert a couple more times of a baby waking up here and then another one for Colt’s alarm to go off at 5:45 to play basketball. 6:00 enter River with a nightmare. Add another day full of laundry getting spread all over the front room after I folded it in the 5 minutes I was on the phone ~ dishes ~ headache ~ never ending meals ~ tired beyond belief ~ not having 2 hands because I'm constantly holding a baby while trying to accomplish everything that needs to be done etc. etc. etc!! There is never any extra time for myself.
Perspective #2--The perspective I decided to take:
I am very blessed to have children. We have the honor of having some of Heavenly Father’s royal spirits here in our home and to be a family growing together.
We are safe and secure in our home with him as the head of it. I get to devote myself to the raising and nurturing of our children. I am the head tutor for this royal family. Every day I have the opportunity to teach and train three little souls about the gospel, being kind and developing a noble character.
I am also the head laundress for this magnificent family. One day the mountain of laundry will be a small hill of just Colt’s and Karin’s laundry, and I will have no sweet baby, and helpers to keep me company while I fold it. One day I won’t have children follow me from room to room and love to be wherever I am – I will miss that.
Colt takes the girls once a month so I can have an afternoon to myself – I miss them so much by the time they come back. I will miss these days terribly once they are passed. I get to exercise while putting Silver on time out for the 30th time while teaching her the value of consistency.
One of my most beloved titles is story reader. We get to read and tell stories, cuddled up on the couch while I watch the wonder in their eyes over what is happening in the stories and to see their fingers pointing at everything they know in the books.
I get to hear their squeals of delight and happiness.
This is a beautiful Season of life with little children that will pass quickly and be missed.
Perspective changes everything.
