an hour

I've finally put my finger on the difference between now and the first year with the twins.  I do have some moments of peace right now, but the first year felt like chaos all the time.  I feel like I am barely treading water sometimes and drowning most of the time, but the first year felt like I was drowning all the time and functioned primarily on adrenaline.  I hope this doesn't sound like complaining, because I don't mean to be and I expect I am happier than most people who feel like they are drowning. ;)  This is just a fact of life right now.  I know someday life will not be this crazy and I'm sure there's a lot about these days that I will miss.  I already miss the days before the boys started crawling!

People often ask me what life is like with a 3 year old and twins.  I don't have time to type out an entire day (and most of it is very mundane), but here's an hour.  A wild and crazy hour.  

3pm.  All three kids were napping, but the boys woke up at the same time.  Neither one of them was ready to be awake and so they were both crying and sleepy and grumpy.  I tried holding both of them at the same time and they were really unhappy about having to share me.  Brian calmed down faster than Micah, so he crawled off to play a little and Micah calmed down once he had my lap to himself.  Brian kept coming by for some reassurance and it would just set Micah off again.  This dislike of sharing me is relatively new and I hope it is a quickly passing phase.  I knew they were hungry, so off we went to the kitchen where I gave them blackberries, tomatoes (they couldn't handle the skin, though), banana, cheese, bread, broccoli, and veggie sticks.  They both have huge appetites!

Brian finished eating first, and he was just a big blackberry mess (and really needed a bath, but there was no time) so I took him to the bathroom to get his soiled clothes off and used a washcloth to wipe him down really well.  Then I took him downstairs to play so I could get Micah cleaned up.  I made a mental note that Brian needed clothes.

When I came back upstairs, Noelle was awake and crying hard because she had wet the bed.  We're trying to get her out of diapers for sleeps, and she woke up dry this morning for the first time ever!  But we weren't so lucky with the nap.  I ran upstairs, apologizing on the way to poor Micah who was stuck in the highchair and unhappy about it, and held Noelle for a few minutes despite the fact that she was soaking wet.  I made a mental note to change my pants soon.  I quickly stripped her bed (and her), making the very unfortunate discovery that her 'waterproof' mattress cover was not at all waterproof.  We came downstairs and I threw a few veggie sticks on Micah's tray and quickly started a load of laundry with her soiled sheets and clothes since she'll need them tonight.  I came back upstairs to finally get Micah cleaned up and out of his highchair and then brought him downstairs to play and ran upstairs to get clothes for Noelle and Brian and me.  Got Noelle cleaned up and dressed and then searched for our bottle of vinegar, which I finally found upstairs.  I sprayed her mattress down with vinegar, then ran back downstairs and got Brian dressed.  Al came home around this time so he took over kid duty while I got ready to go teach some lessons.  Within that hour, I was up and down two different flights of stairs at least 12 times... no wonder I haven't weighed this little since college!

I think the hardest part is when all three kids need something from me at the same time.  I feel like I have many moments during the day in which I am just trying to put out fires.  But this is different, thankfully, from a year ago, when I felt like this all day and all night.  This was just one crazy period of time and then it settled down just a little.  I'm not sure exactly what happened after I left, but I know that all three kids were dressed and two of them were fed!  I'm pretty sure Al played with them for a little while and then made dinner.  So there you go - an hour of our day!  This is life with a 3 year old and twin babies.