Mommy-dom

I have had two really good days in a row. Considering that during the weekend and the first of the week I cried virtually nonstop, this is saying something.

Yesterday afternoon I almost kind of lost it when the reality that
*I had to drive to town to pick up our one town Brownie
*I had to be back in 20 minutes (it's a 20 minute drive just TO town) because they've started running the bus route backwards in the evening and I had not just 2, but 4 kids getting off the bus 20 minutes earlier than usual
*I needed to pick up GS cookies, but there was no way THAT was going to happen till later
*I couldn't get hold of one Brownie mom, which meant that she would be at my house shortly, regardless of the fact that I cancelled the meeting, albeit last minute.

AND THERE WAS NO WAY I COULD DO IT ALL BY MYSELF!

Normally on Brownie nights, my sister picks up some of the slack, but she has the flu. Real, true and 100% influenza. She is one sick sister.

SO I cancelled Brownies, yeah, we went over that. I had my Kady, Chandler and my nephew (because Sis was so sick she couldn't even get out of bed to feed him, bless her heart!) and when the bus ran that added my Abby and Sam, plus my niece and Ab's friend, McKenzie. THEN Magnet Lady came over (she was the Brownie mom I couldn't reach) with her daughter. And THEN I had kinda, in the chaos of it all, forgotten that I had called my sister in law to see if her niece, Cheyenne, could spend the night. They hit right after Magnet Lady did. If you weren't keeping a running total, that adds up to 9 children. Yeah....9.

But here's the weird part. It was awesome.

My house was full of children! Ever since I can remember, I've dreamed of having children all over the place - either my own or other's coming to visit my own. While the herd of children played - and played well, I must add - Magnet Lady, McKenzie's mom, my sister in law and I all visited. We talked over Valentine's Day (the group was split as to whether the holiday sucked or didn't. Guess how Magnet Lady and I voted.) we talked about life in general, husbands in general, and it was WONDERFUL. The house was noisy, the kids were rambunctious, but they weren't killing each other, no one was bleeding, furniture was still intact and I was in my own little version of heaven.

My sister in law had to go finally. McKenzie and her mom had to go and so did Magnet Lady and Little Miss Magnet, my brother in law picked up my niece and nephew, Jill picked up Chandler and then suddenly, even with 4 children still here, my house was quiet.

But I couldn't relish in it quiet yet. There were still 500 some odd boxes of Girl Scout cookies in Miami waiting for me to pick them up. So I loaded up the kids and off we sped. They were waiting on us and I felt bad I'd made them wait. But the good part of that was, they were more than willing to help me load up because they were ready to GO. Okay, so when I see all of the cookies that were set aside just for my little Troop of 5 girls, I nearly had a cow. The back doors to my van do not open. I had 4 children in my van. I do not drive a freakin' semi, just an Astro. But hey, I am the Almighty Girl Scout Leader and somehow 41 cases of cookies fit in there. Granted, the children had their knees under their chins, boxes were stacked to the ceiling, I drove with my right arm outstretched to keep the leaning tower in my passenger seat from crashing down on my head, but by golly they fit. I prayed that we didn't have a wreck because we'd have never found the children in that mess.


So when we got home I unloaded enough boxes to get the three big kids out and they didn't even have to be told, they just started taking the boxes in the house. Yay kids! I did something RIGHT regarding your upbringing to this point! Once the van was unloaded we stacked the cookies according to variety and I sent the kids off to straighten up the toyroom. You can only imagine how it looked after 9 kids had been playing in it. While they cleaned, I made dinner and began re-heating chili for Paul. I felt like Martha Stewart, I swear.

We let the kids stay up late and they thought they were the hippest kids around when I said it was okay that they watch ER. Abby exclaimed during a commercial break, "Dude! WHY haven't you told us about this show before??" I didn't divulge that normally during ER they are asleep and her father and I lie on the couch, cop feels and make out like teenagers. I kind of thought she didn't need to know that. I just shrugged and grinned instead.

This morning I made breakfast like a freakin' pro, flipping pancakes onto plates like a short-order cook, timing the bacon to come out of the oven at just the right time and man, I had my game on.

Sis got all kinds of froggy this morning and thought she was well enough to take her kids to town. She made it through the eye doctor appointment and then fell to pieces. I insisted that she bring the kids to me (actually I tried insisting that she let me take them to the eye doctor, but since TotOne has vision issues she felt she should) and told her that if she kept refusing that I was going to tell Mom. She looked like death when she dropped them off. I sent her home with Chloraseptic spray and orders to go straight to bed.

You'd think adding two kids to the mix would make things fall apart. Nope. Things only got better. Because since there was a boy here finally, Sam quit pestering the girls and everone settled down. Lunch was again, a miracle in itself. They ate without spilling or making too big of a mess and they got, what else, Girl Scout cookies for dessert. They all watched Finding Nemo awhile ago and when that was over I sent them outside. Not too long after they went outside, the neighbor dropped off his two girls until their mom gets off work. I think, if I counted correctly the last time they came through for drinks, there are 8 of them now. And life is good.