Not My Finest Moment

It's interesting what sheer willpower and downright cockiness can do to you. For example, it can lead you to believe that you can handle a trip to the grocery store. By yourself. With 3 children in tow. It all started out well enough. A sunny day, powdery new snow dusting the world, Dunkin Donuts in hand, the promise (bribe?) of one of those tv cart thingys for the boys once we reached the store. (The only problem with that being that Grayson won't fit, requiring him to be strapped onto my person with the Moby Wrap. This is an excellent invention. Except for reasons of which you will soon be told here.) JJ and Ben held hands as we traversed through the parking lot - tra la la.
It's astonishing even in retrospect how quickly things unraveled. JJ decided he was done holding hands and ditched his brother who was decidedly NOT finished holding hands. So Ben handled this situation as any two-year-old might. By stopping in the middle of the road and screaming at the top of his lungs. And then in his distraught state toppling right over onto the wet pavement (it's difficult to throw a tantrum with boots on). With Grayson dangling on my front, I attempted to pick up a flailing Ben. Enter passersby #1 and 2: "Oh boy. Kids." "Is he tired?" Gee - that was very scintillating and necessary commentary old folks. Thanks for that.
I managed to get us all into the store, though not before dropping Ben's already nasty blanket in the dirtiest mud puddle in the surrounding area and stepping on it. Jeran was scoping out the tv carts when I mentioned that we had to make our way to the service desk (all the way on the other end of the store of course) to change my quarters into a dollar. Commence hollering and fit-throwing. (Do you feel my blood pressure rising yet?) I dragged a stubborn, still-unhappy Ben toward the customer service desk with Jeran reluctantly (and loudly) following, then stopping and refusing to move further. Well. That was enough. The conditions of this cart thingy were that the boys were cooperating on this trip and that clearly was not happening. So I took a deep breath and announced we were no longer shopping with a tv.
Remember that scene in the second Lord of the Rings film when the ringwraith is flying around overhead on that half bat/half snake creature? Do you recall the ear-splitting sound made during that scene? (Did several of you stop reading just now to ponder how much of a dork I am that I'm in love with those movies?) Then you have heard the sound my almost-five-year-old was making as he threw himself to the ground, in the MIDDLE of the walkway, and began flailing about. It was really a surreal moment.
Enter passerby #3. Sweet older lady bending over trying to calmly talk to the tasmanian devil I sometimes know as Jeran. She kept asking me if I wanted her to try picking him up, and all I could wonder was what kind of death wish she had. I can't even imagine all the places his kicking feet would land before she dropped him or broke a bone. She persisted. I declined. With gritted teeth (and I think a bit of a snarl in there).
At this point in the story I am grappling with my twenty-some pound two-year-old (made 10 lbs heavier by all his winter paraphernalia) trying to hoist him into the cart. UNSUCCESSFULLY grappling and hoisting I might add. The cumbersome addition of my infant son on my front section was an obstacle not easily overcome. Now I was really losing it. I'm sure my face was an interesting shade of red, my hair wildly out of place. Various other passerby are smirking as they stand, staring, and I'm ready to give them a tongue lashing. Or one of my children. Take THAT!
The grotesque details of our immediate departure from the store I need not bore you with. Suffice it to say - I blew it. Who wouldn't? you might say.
But I - don't - want - to be - that - mom- anymore.
I'm far more humiliated by how I behaved (without a single ounce of grace) than by how my children did. Who did all those people see today as they watched this situation unfold? Not Jesus, that's for sure. Jesus would not have said to his child, "I'm so embarrassed by you." He wouldn't have literally thrown his children into a shopping cart or barked at people who were only trying their darndest to be helpful. He wouldn't have been screaming at his son in the parking lot to get in the car and get his seat belt on.
The only redeeming parts of this whole experience are that a)I stuck to my guns and b) I received a hearty dose of humility along with a reminder that I cannot CANNOT do this job in my own strength.
And now here I sit. No motivation. No pride. No groceries.

Let's Do Some Math

Fighting kids + trashed house + attempting to cook + finding an unsupervised infant with a penny and Legos about to lodge in his throat + flooded laundry room + futile job hunt + absent hubby for the evening = sanity hanging by a rapidly fraying thread

Tomorrow's lesson: multitasking - sleep = disaster

As a follow up...

In keeping somewhat with the spirit of my last post, I'd just like to say that today I was reflecting on my kids, motherhood, etc. This phrase popped in my head, and I was startled by how unequivocally, absolutely true it is for me:
My very worst day with my children is better than any day I would have to live without them.
Wow. Big stuff.

Caught in the Middle

For all my grumping and whining I truly do love being a mom. It has changed my life irrevocably. It has enlarged my heart, my world, my compassion, my perspective to no end. It has bonded me to my husband (and also to many mother-friends) to a degree I never knew existed. It has opened my realization to those corners of my life that I haven't really wanted to dust up and work on, and most importantly it has rocked my understanding of God as a loving Father. So though I have lost what stunning youth beauty I may have once possessed (Right. My idea of accessorizing has always been wearing shoes that match.) and am up to my ears in diapers, drool, tantrums, and toys I would not for one second count myself as anything but blessed and am so grateful that God has led me here. Sometimes, though, I do think about what is yet to come. My oldest child turns five next month, and I realize more than ever that time marches on, and I am starting to force myself to deal with the fact that my boys will grow up and away. Who will I be then? What new passion will fill my days when mothering is no longer my primary job description? I have lots of desires but little confidence regarding my ability where any of them are concerned: writing, reading, music, teaching. I can look back over my life thus far and see a partially-formed puzzle with lots of pieces still missing. I know without doubt God has used all of the experiences of my life thus far to make me who I am and to equip me for just the job I have now...and even for the ones to come. But I still feel a little caught in the middle. Of life as it was and life as it will be. Which, really, when I think about it, is not all that bad. Because the life I'm in right now is pretty great.

Updates, etc.

I am happy to report that:
A) the last couple of nights have been restful ones. All the boys have been sleeping through the night with the exception of one or two Jeran episodes. With James's mom and dad staying with us over this past weekend, we moved JJ and Ben into a room together, and this has seemed to help immensely. Therefore we are on the lookout for bunk beds to make this room sharing situation permanent.
B) Grayson is on the mend. The steroid cream is working WONDERS (sans any voice changes or unwanted hair). He finished his antibiotics, and we'll see how the old ears are doing at a check-up in a couple of weeks. And did I mention he's been sleeping through the night? (Knock on wood)

A funny Jeran-ism for you:
JJ: Mom, how old are you? (I know - loaded question or what? I'm sure you can guess approximately where this is going.)
Mom: I'm 32.
JJ: (pause as he begins counting) Whoa, that's a lot of numbers.

Ode to Sleep

"Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."

I'd like to kick, squarely in the teeth, the author of this proverb. But that's only because I'm slightly delirious due to lack of sleep. For the past several weeks we in the Louwerse household have been living the exact opposite. Which goes something like this:

"Late to sleep, frequently woken, makes one ill, useless, and short-spoken."

Yes. Well. Like I said, I'm tired.

Our sleep woes have stemmed primarily from sickness. Ben and Grayson have been nursing colds for the past two weeks, though they seem to be well now. James suffered from it somewhere in there, and Jeran caught it a couple of days ago. Unfortunately, for him it led to a fit of vomiting for about 7 hours Thursday night. Not fun. All of us feeling run down and not getting enough sleep effectively put an end to our plans to head to Michigan this weekend. Sniff. But I'll admit it has been exactly what we needed just to do absolutely nothing and REST. As much as you do such a thing with three boys under the age of 5 around.

Even without sickness, sleep has been pretty scarce for us. For one thing Grayson has still been waking up once a night, and yes, I know, I need to just grow a spine and cut him off. Maybe something about him being the last baby is making me wuss out, I don't know. Possibility #2: Maybe my sanity can handle him waking up, eating for 10 minutes, and going right back to sleep but not "crying it out" for an hour and a half.

The other thing is that Jeran still consistently wakes up several times a night, crying, inconsolable, not even awake. It is equal parts heartbreaking and maddening. We can't figure out what's causing it or, more importantly, how to fix it.

Baby Graybie had his 9 month check up yesterday, and we discovered, to quote my hubby, that he is a "hot mess". Double ear infection (love when I don't catch those), eczema, and he has dropped significantly in the weight percentile. Enough so that they tested his hemoglobin to see whether he's not getting enough iron. Real nice. Feeling like the mom of the year. But we now have him on some amoxicillan and steroid cream (hopefully we don't wake up to a nine-month-old with a deep voice and chest hair tomorrow).

So what else is going on in our life besides illness and not sleeping?

Well, there's the whole Ben is a hoarder situation. Yes, I've said it. If there was a support group on such things I would go. "Hello, my name is Julie, and I'm the mother of a hoarder." He's pretty hilarious actually. He'll gather up as many things as he can possibly carry (more things than he can, really) and walk around the house with them. And any activity he wants to take part in has to include his "treasures". But, man, does that kid get pissed if he drops something. He's been a tad OCD lately, needing things to be "just so". It's so interesting to see their personalities emerge. And by interesting I mean...exhausting. Speaking of which, I think I'll go catch an hour or so of shut-eye before the nighttime circus commences.

Check out this guy

He did this himself.

Wanna start placing any bets on how long it will be before he's walking?? I don't. :)