Love and War and Love Again

The theme this week for Shutterlove Tuesday is "A Story in Pictures."  

Words really are not necessary for the pictures below, especially if you have ever attempted a photo shoot with three small children...

The End

For more, less violent, picture stories visit Trendy Treehouse...

Who needs toys?

When

you

have

paper bags

and siblings.

Big boy

I guess I was not prepared for raising a baby so close in age to his siblings.  

Soon after the shock of my pregnancy wore off I began dreaming about my little rainbow baby who would let me hold him and cuddle him for as long as I wanted, dissolving all of my this-is-going-by-too-fast worries about his big brother and sisters.  

Ashlyn was so far apart in age from the triplets and then Parker and McKenna have always done everything at the same time so I had no idea how much this little guy would want to be a big guy.

He does everything 15 month going on 3 year-old style.  

He uses a toddler sippy cup.

He will not drink milk (one taste of watered down juice and he was hooked).

He will not eat a meal without a spoon or fork, bowl or plate.

Baby food offends him.

He throws out his own diapers (major perk).

He wants to climb the tall slide, 

      jump off the furniture, 

      watch the Wiggles... 

      whatever it is the big kids are doing.

He gives us a heart attack daily hourly.

So why am I surprised every time I change his chubby little butt and find his latest denial of all things baby?

Big boy underpants

(diaper underneath, I'm not that crazy)

Wordless Wednesday

Bye bye Sissy

Mutiny

You know those days where you feel totally on top of everything?  

You get to shower and brush your teeth before noon, come up with enough activities to keep your children from tearing apart the house and each other and even have dinner in the oven?

This is NOT one of those days.  

The kids have declared mutiny on their mother.  

There has been more trouble caused, messes made and kids crying than I could possibly tend to, clean up and settle down in one day.  I was wondering how exactly it got to this point today and then I remembered.

Here is just a small piece of the morning drama...

Sawyer woke up from his morning nap covered in a gag-worthy mess.

While mopping him up McKenna sauntered by stirring a glass full of water with the television remote. (spot clean the baby with wipes, leave the rest in pursuit of the glass and remote)

As McKenna cried over the loss of her concoction I heard the toilet flushing and found Parker "cleaning" the floor with a toilet brush. (grab the brush, throw it in the sink, make mental note to clean the floor and the sink)

By now it was lunch time, I herded everyone downstairs, Parker tripped on the gait (crying) so I put  Sawyer down (2 crying) and consoled Parker while McKenna's declared she was getting a freeze pop.  "No freeze pops, McKenna" (and 3 crying).

In desperation I gave them each an empty two liter and a stack of plastic cups and tried to find something to feed them before the next disaster hit.  The two liters were not a hit. (couch cushions flew, the baby tried to get outside, McKenna found a new outfit from the dirty clothes)

We made it to lunch and while everyone was strapped in and eating massaging their food into the table McKenna's doctor called and as I moved further and further from my screeching, squealing, whining children so that I could decipher a portion of the doctor's instructions I was fully aware that the fate of my kitchen worsened the further I got from my children.  

I ended the call as quickly as I could and returned to find that no one had broken out of their chairs because they were too busy launching chewed up food onto the floor.  I let everyone free and began to assess the damage.

Without too much more destruction we made it to nap time and just as I shut their door, in my deep breathe of relief I took in an eye-watering smell and remembered Sawyer's naptime mess that for some reason I had never been able to clean up.

Before I get them after nap I may give them a little while to chat, hopefully they will decide that the morning mutiny was enough and they will go easy on me for the afternoon.

For sale

Has anyone out there sold a house with three small children??
At least if someone responds I will know that I will live to tell about it.

We have had our house up for sale for a while now and trying to clean it for showings, get all of the kids out of the house while they walk through AND maintain some sort of a nap schedule is going to do me in.  I actually got a slap-on-the-hand call from our realty because I think I have said "no" one too many times to showing requests so I sucked it up and let them show the house yesterday.
At dinnertime.
When Mark was working late.

They came early.
Right after naptime, no diapers changed or snacks handed out, early.
No time to stuff the rest of our crap in every inconspicuous place and load the kids in the car early.

The realtor said she had twins so she understood but she didn't look like she understood and as the showing went on it was very clear that her nanny keeps very long hours.

So they are in the house for two minutes and someone stinks.
I'm trying to casually sniff behinds and once I figure out the offender I am then debating on what is better, changing a stinky toddler in a room they may pop into or letting him walk the house and hope that our potential buyers have no sense of smell.  McKenna solved that debate for me by feeding the baby a price tag so I moved on to fishing it out of his mouth and Twin Mommy realtor starts asking me to come open doors that have child proof handles (more evidence of the amount of overtime her nanny must work).
So I'm carrying the baby, McKenna is hanging onto the back of my leg for dear life and Parker is following with what I assumed was a trail of flies at his diaper by this point.
By now we are pushing dinner time and since the price tag didn't fill Sawyer up I had to feed him.  While feeding Sawyer, Ashlyn began a mini meltdown over mexican dip and Parker and McKenna began screeching and beating each other over a bubble wand, while standing on the chair that I was sitting on to feed the baby.  Oh, and did I mention at this time they are taking pictures of the main floor from our loft, capturing this whole lovely scene??

At this point I tell them the kids come with the house.  They barely smile because I'm assuming they are horrified by this whole scene and telling themselves they will never have children that act like this and all Twin Mommy can say is that this age is so fun.  That is just what I was thinking.

They thanked me for my time and left quickly so they could get to their car and shake their heads over the insane asylum they just visited.  I continued to feed Sawyer, untangled a bubble wand from my hair and calmed two toddlers with toys and a teenager with mexican dip and prayed that these people buy our home because we are never showing it to anyone again.

The band

Believe it or not my little Sawyer was the one who started this.  Parker and McKenna have advanced to getting into much more sophisticated trouble than taking things out of low cupboard.  He proudly began unloading the pots and pans so I figured I might as well toss everyone a spoon and fill my ears with cotton while they played their little hearts out.