How is Life?

April 19th, 2015

How is Life?
Lately I have been asked the questions about life and stuff.
How is life?
How are you?
How is everything going?
So here's the truth:
it's kinda difficult.

Thatcher graced our lives less than one month ago and God has blessed  us mightily with this healthy, happy, and absolutely adorable baby boy. He smiles, goes crossed-eye when he is trying to focus, and smells delightful. Graciously, he also sleeps and nurses really, really well.
His teeny-tiny baby thighs are filling out and he has some plush baby chub around his shoulder blades and belly.
*perfection*

Let me be clear: there is nothing difficult about Thatcher.

Lack of a full night's sleep goes with the Mommy title and my body gets dry and sore in particular, nursing mom's places, but that means he is here, at home, with us. With me. And this is not difficult. 

So this post came to me while I was chasing my two big kiddos out of the kitchen where a newborn in a reclining baby chair was sleeping and I was putting away clean dishes.
The floor is unkept.
A new batch of dishes needs cleaned.
And a racecar just went past my bare feet, through the dried pudding blob on the floor, and past sleeping newborn son one too many times. And I got overwhelmed.

The racecar made it to "toy time out" and my big kids got my wrath.
STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN!!!

                                                         Stir clear of my kitchen!!!!!

Here's some more truth.
I think my sons are lying. The two oldest.
Someone tore down the Spring! bunting I had strung across the fireplace.
And knocked over the quilt rack (for the upteenth time).
It was Zep, said Demitri.
It was Demitri, said Zep.
Maybe it was Big Strong Man, I don't know, but otherwise someone is lying.

And there is a new toothbrush being thrown on the bathroom floor every other night (and a toothbrush thrown on the floor ends up in the trash at our house), and children pushing all the electronic buttons in the van and forcing Big Strong Man and I to either forbid them to touch anything (and constantly be on their cases) or consistently reset the buttons. Both senerios are, honestly, annoying.

We reward them with dessert when they eat just two bites of dinner and even this is a bribe or a guilt trip and the two adults in the house are really just acting fools. Honestly, we are fools I sometimes feel like, we are fools.
We invite them to weekend sleepovers downstairs in the living room and they throw cushions, and tear bunting, and  jump on everything.

Life feels pretty hectic right now.
I feel a little discouraged. Honestly.
Two days in a row now, today included, I raised my voice and caused one or both of them to cry.
Why don't they just get it?

                                               Maybe I should have listened to this mom. 
                                                             She's smiling, after all

And my Knight in all of this?
I throw verbal feces at him as well because I think he is having an affair with Facebook and I have such a pity-party for myself every time he looks past the hardening pudding on the floor and mountains of laundry in-leu of his hot tub or television- which, in truth, he has been surpassing for time landscaping our home. I really should not be this upset with him. But I am.
Every comment he makes about this house or our children, everything that comes down to how difficult doing "all this" is, I smirk my selfish smirk and roll my eyes because I feel that this is my life right now and he is a bystander so the sarcasm and fiery eye darts I throw at him are merited.
So I tell myself.

His work day begins in the early morning and ends in the early evening, so many days he is home just in time for dinner, play time, and bed. -It is as though he doesn't get that I "do this" day in and day out and still he has the audacity to play the overwhelmed card when he is home for a few hours on a random evening. 
I really get to thinking that I have the right to feel "better about myself" by reminding him that most days he is his own boss and needs to be concerned about himself alone.
I, of course, believe that my life is split four ways because I do not have the luxury to just take a shower without being accountable to three additional sets of eyes and three additional minds, each with wills of their own.
When he is at work, he is not trying to squeeze in a few dishes here and there so that, come evening's end, there is not a pile in the sink with hardening ketchup and honey.
He does not lay down the dish gloves so that he can nurse a newborn while trying trying to engage with the two big kids so that they are not made to watch the television all day long.
Seriously, I have to wake-up extra early, wait until bed, or somehow work some voodoo to be able to take that above-mentioned shower during the day.
...and I keep the bathroom door open so that an eye can be on baby boy at all times, otherwise his older, loving but not exactly gentle brothers, many jump on him or decide he is ready for a peanut butter spoon.

I suppose the words here are: discouraged and bitter; overwhelmed.

But here is the best truth of them all.
I am mad at myself.
Every time I raise my voice, this fear returns to me that these wonderful sons of mine will turn this into a memory and it will cause a rift between us someday.
And that Big Strong Man, who is much quicker to forgive and less offend-able than I, will finally be offended and not withhold forgiveness, but grace- which he showers me with generously.
And how I must beat myself up. -Not because I think that God will turn on me, I know He will not, but rather, because I will come to Him, again, and ask for forgiveness and help, again, and feel kinda like a loser who is richly blessed with family and love and still whines like a baby for the world to read about.

Sitting here and typing this, Big Strong Man manning the upstairs hallway where he has taken over for me by separating the boys and trying to explain why lying is a sin and something we just do not do, I have the instant release of "getting this off my chest", but, should you ever be reading this (which means that I actually chose to post it), it will not be on this particular day, and likely not for a long while.
One more truth? I love my family. Incredibly.
Not a thing typed or said about them could truly express the love, and respect, and hope, and sense of awe, I have for each of them.
So I will calm down. I will mind my tongue...and temper.
If you are reading this, let it be because this post now represents hindsight and I am laughing as I hit "publish".

So the moral of this all, because this merits a moral, is this:
                                              Life is difficult...sometimes.
                                                  Life is also glorious...
                        we simply have to remember to look back and laugh.

feeling better, more calm and graceful-