Life Rearranged

You know Those Days?

Those Days when the minutes crawwwwwwwlllll by?  {How has it only been 9 minutes since I last looked???}

Those Days when you look at the clock and audibly groan when you see that it’s still only 2:35 in the afternoon?  {No way.  That’s gotta be wrong.}

Those Days when you seriously contemplate tricking your kids into thinking its way later than it is if you feed them dinner, shower them, put them in pjs, and tuck them in bed at…oh, I don’t know…4:45?  {I read somewhere that lavender essential oils are calming…}

Monday.  There.  Those Days.

We had had a hectic weekend.  A funeral.  A birthday party.  Church.  Lunch at a friend’s.

Just non-stop.

By Monday, the kids were kinda sideways…and Mondays also happen to be the one day of the week when no one has school.

Truthfully, they weren’t really bad…they were just LOUD.  And crazy with a side of insane.  That’s them.  Standing on a table.  Playing air guitar.

And MESSY.  Soaking wet from running in the sprinklers.  While still clothed.  {I said it was okay.  But in hindsight, it probably wasn’t.}

Messier than usual.  I felt like every room…ever CORNER…ever CREVICE of my house had some assortment of toys in it.

No matter how many times I picked stuff up…no matter how many times I bellowed for THEM to pick stuff up…it was STUFF.

ALL THE PLACES STUFF.

And did I mention they were louder than usual?  Lots of laughing and pretend sword fighting…but hello, loud.

I basically wanted to cry when I realized it wasn’t even 3:00 yet.

Oh…and then there was the little detail that Andy had a dinner meeting that night.

Which meant that not only was he going to eat prime rib and drink local craft beers {uninterrupted might I add}…he was also going to be home late.

As in, well after bedtime late.

So, 3:00 didn’t mean 2 hours and 45 minutes until some reprieve…3:00 meant FIVE HOURS.

Hold me.

{As an aside, Andy does not understand why I get all wild eyed crazy when he gets home at 6:00 instead of 5:45.  ”It’s only 15 minutes later, Jeannett!”  ONLY 15 minutes.  Humph.  Two words: Witching Hour.  That’s a “thing” because it is real and it exists.}

So back to Monday…I was pretty desperate.

So desperate, in fact, that I loaded up all four kids into the car…something I try to avoid when I’m solo…because seriously, it’s gotta be really worth it to do all that lifting, heaving, buckling, and unbuckling…and I went to the drive thru.

I wasn’t even hungry.

And we had food at home.

But this wasn’t really about food.  In fact, it wasn’t about food AT ALL.

This was about getting out of the house…strapping the kids down…in a way that I wouldn’t get arrested for…where they couldn’t touch each other…where they couldn’t make one. more. mess…

I drove to the furthest fast food joint from my house…in the next town over…the one with the notoriously long drive thru line…and I took the even longer way home…the way that makes me back track and go waaaay out of my way…

And then this.

They magically discovered…of all the days…of all the times…that they could screech at the same time.  That ear piercing, your ears hear that whoosh of wind because it gets so high pitched screech?  Yeah, that one.

But you know what?

I couldn’t even get mad at them.

They were playing.

Together.

Even the blonde.

She was imitating her siblings.

She was playing appropriately and they were all laughing.

TOGETHER.

Not just Henry and Lucy.  Not just Jilly.

All of them.

And they were having fun.

So, basically, I had to laugh.

Because sometimes it’s Those Days that leave you no choice but to laugh.  At the irony.  At how you have so little control.  At the beauty of Fun.Anything else and you’d lose your mind.

I vote laughing.

{Although, let’s face it, it took seeing those goofy faces cracking themselves up to embrace that.  The rest of the day?  I was not laughing. At all.   Just keepin’ it real.}