Life With Three

Fall Fun Day at Preschool- no, the goat is not mine. 

I often get the question, "What's it like with THREE?" Since I have only had three little ones for two months now, I am still learning. However, I can definitely say that it is a lot of work. Newborn babies are fantastic, but they are also high maintenance. My little guy eats every two hours, and poops every time he eats. That's a lot of time right there! Plus I haven't quite figured out the penis thing: when he's laying down, he often leaks on the front of his shirt. I've tried to get my husband to explain to me why this happens (since he has a penis) but apparently he doesn't pee on his shirts when he's laying down. In any case,  Davis has a lot of wardrobe changes throughout the day. Which means more laundry too. Laundry, ugh the laundry. I am always doing laundry... and I hate doing laundry. My husband and I re-wear clothes, but the kids are so dirty they burn through multiple outfits a day. When I look at my choice of clothing for the day I have to decide if I want to re-wear a shirt that has snot on the shoulder or a some random kid food stain or if I want to add it to the ever growing pile of dirty clothes.

If I'm not feeding kids, changing diapers, or doing laundry, I am probably cooking or cleaning. We have a small house, so I have to pick up often or the place is totally wrecked and chaos ensues. I am pretty OCD about keeping the place clean, but that seems harder to do these days. I am doing pretty good if I get things straightened up, but "clean" is a whole other beast. In fact, I am pretty sure my whole house is covered in a layer of random, kid-produced stickiness.

Then there are times, like this morning, when something really gross happens. I went to investigate what the wet, sticky substance was that I had stepped in by the edge of my bed last night. I had enough sense to wipe my foot off with a baby wipe, but at 3:30am, I had no desire to dig deeper. So this morning I looked under the bed to find my toddler's missing plastic straw cup leaking out the contents. The cup has been MIA for weeks, and as best I can tell it contained a smoothie. Ugh. Gag. I made a mental note to scrub my foot a little more than usual if I get around to taking a shower today.

Sometimes, when I am doing something really mundane, like scrapping stickers off the hardwood floor or scrubbing paint stains out of clothes, I am thinking about the fact that I'm still paying off student loans for a wasted bachelor's degree.

Impromptu Baby Photo Shoot

When I catch myself getting too caught up in keeping up the house, I try to shift gears by doing something completely unproductive and fun with the girls. Today we did a chalk art photo shoot, played in the rain, and made some Halloween magic bars. We also spent about an hour applying ice packs and bandaids in a mock-emergency room after Leila busted up both knees outside. What started off as trauma, ended up being pretty cute pretend play for both of the girls- although we may be out of bandaids now.

I couldn't be happier with my little crew. I love that I got to make three Halloween costumes. I love seeing three pairs of PJ's laid out for bed. I love that I know each one of these children better than anyone else in the world. I love that when they are hurt, sad, or tired, they look to me for comfort. I love each one of them so completely, even when it's the middle of the night and I am begging (or yelling) at them to go back to sleep (again). I may be totally wiped out by the end of the day, but I feel full of love and gratitude.