A Very Long Post About a Very Long Night

You know, for the most part, (thus far) I don't think that having four kids is a lot more work than having three -- or almost even two. As you have another baby, the older ones keep getting older. Thereby, requiring less of me as they become more independent and also they learn to occupy and entertain the younger ones (Elsie, in particular). There is definitely more mess, with more children -- more toys, more laundry, more dishes -- but mess is inevitable. I've been cleaning up "mess" for a LONG time - LOTS of it - and what's more laundry or more dishes? I already hate doing it - having one less load wouldn't change that. :) So, most of the time, I haven't felt that this transition has been too dramatic.

There are, however, a couple of exceptions to this rule. Shopping and Bedtime. These are times when having more children ABSOLUTELY makes exponentially more chaos. Especially with a newborn. Now shopping? I can learn to live with rarely going to the store. I can learn to make due with what we have in our home, even if it means using baby wipes instead of toilet paper or a day or so -- or even having every person in the family eat something different for dinner because we don't have enough of any one thing to feed everyone the same. :) However, bedtime (unfortunately) cannot be bypassed.

Case in point.

Tonight Nels is with some friends filming . . . whatever. The details of what he is doing are really irrelevant, aside from the fact that this is more of a recreational activity. - Not work or necessarily money related. I'm glad that he's having fun. So Nels is gone for the evening. His parents are in town and we spent the evening with them swimming at their hotel pool. Nels needed to meet up with friends as 7:15, we didn't get home until 7:20 and he still needed to get ready. The girls were tired and hungry.

I immediately began figuring out dinner with three little people hovering around me (and the refrigerator) wondering what and WHEN I was going to feed them. We settled on tacos and I shooed them out of the kitchen for the tenth time in as many minutes. Violet was still snoozing blissfully in her car seat as I began cooking hamburger and kissed Nels goodbye. Fifteen seconds after he drives off, the girls are once again circling around me at the stove and Violet begins howling from the next room.

I am faced with a decision here. Do I stop making dinner right now? Delaying the feeding of my ravenous little beasts - to feed their sister? Who could, quite possibly decide to take the next twenty minutes nursing before she will allow me to finish dinner. Twenty minutes of nursing, twenty minutes to finish dinner, twenty minutes for girls to eat dinner. At least an extra HOUR until the girls can get in bed and it's already 7:45 -- Hazel has school in the morning and she's already exhausted. OR do I NOT feed my starving Violet, finish making dinner, and then feed her while the other girls are eating -- thus combining activities and getting my girls in bed about half an hour earlier?

Poor little doll screamed her little head off - strapped into the front carrier - the entire twenty minutes that it took me to finish the tacos and get them dished up for everyone. :(

As I'm sitting at the dinner table, discreetly feeding Violet while also "gently encouraging" the other three "starving" children to please eat and stop poking, talking, picking, disassembling, etc., Elsie proceeds to sit up on the back of her booster chair and inform me that she needs to use the potty. As I'm instructing her to get down and go do so, she proceeds to empty her bladder right then and there - filling up her booster seat and overflowing onto the floor.

I get her down, one-handedly take off her sopping drawers and shoo her to the the toilet. Hazel finishes eating at this point and I ask her if she thinks she can manage putting a "nighttime" diaper on Elsie while I finish feeding Violet. SURE! sure . . .

The next ten minutes are spent still "gently encouraging" Lilie to stop picking apart her tortilla and spilling out its contents all over the pee-covered floor, while Hazel chases Elsie screaming around the kitchen and down the hall.

Lilie and Violet both finally finish eating. I capture the Streaker, instruct Lilie and Hazel on the specifics (for the billionth time) of brushing teeth and using the toilet in less than 45 minutes, put nighttime diaper on said Streaker, and sit her back down (in a different chair, of course) at the dinner table to finish her taco.

Hazel and Lilie actually brush their teeth AND use the toilet in record time, we have "family prayer" without Elsie, and amazingly neither of them throw a fit when I kiss them and send them to tuck themselves into their beds.

Elsie spends the next twenty minutes demolishing and slowly devouring morsel after morsel of her taco, while I once again feed Violet who has decided that she is still hungry. All the while, I keep reminding Elsie to stop talking and keep eating. She eats one black bean or one piece of cheese. "Eat your taco, Elsie." "What you want me to do?" "Eat your food." "This food? You want me to eat my food?" "Yes. Eat your taco." "Okay. Eat it?" "Yes. That food." Picks up small piece of tortilla and eats it, then starts trying to get down. "Eat your taco, Elsie." "What you want me to do?" "Eat your food." --- And the conversation continues in this cycle for the next twenty minutes. She and Violet finally finish and I then get the disgusting opportunity to clean up the pee-filled seat and pee-smeared floor, while Elsie "helps" Violet "stay asleep" while erratically swinging her back and forth in the baby swing. (No harm came to Violet whilst on the receiving end of this sisterly love -- beyond being woke up.)

Ten minutes later, Elsie was FINALLY in bed.

The dishes are exploding out of the sink, I just started the washer to RE-wash a load of laundry that I forgot was in there two days ago, the basement is covered in forts, dinosaurs, wii remotes, and dress up clothes, I have an unfinished library book that's due tomorrow, a bank account that hasn't been balanced for three weeks, and my body is still covered in chlorine from this afternoon. But you know what, now that I've recorded this night for future laughs, I'm going to cuddle up in my bed with my snuggly little baby (who will want to eat again in half an hour) and watch The Biggest Loser. Dishes, Laundry, Cleaning, Balancing, and Showers will all still be there and need to be done again tomorrow.

Bedtime is not my favorite time of the day . . .