We are at my parents for this beautiful 4th of July in MO. Yesterday we spent some time outside at the baby pool with K and S, while the boys were running around with water guns getting Papa wet… and anyone else who got in there way. It was sunny and warm… a good afternoon.

When K got tired of the water, we got everyone back into the house, dried off and some down for naps. As we worked on all of this, the sky got darker… and suddenly it opened up and poured on us… well, the house we were all safely dry in.

The wind whipped all around us… even knocked the porch swing over. The rain was heavy and there was hail involved, too. My dad, sitting at the computer and watching out the window said rhetorically, “Wow, look at that… hail and everything… Where did that hail come from?”

J, sitting behind Papa playing, said, “From hell?”

 photo by Grandma 😉

I am not a mom who likes kids sleeping in our room. Not at any age. At K’s age or even younger, I would be afraid I would smush them in the night. However, once they are old enough to get out of their bed, an element of control is lost.

G would, like clock work, get up and come into our room and snuggle up at 6:30 every morning for about a year, maybe 18 months. He started at about 2 years old. I thought he would never stop. He still has mornings where he wants to cuddle, but we sit on the couch while we both wake up… and that’s not every morning any more either.

S is not like clock work… it’s very hit or miss. Sometimes I think it depends on the pjs she has on. And the time she crawls into my bed changes, too. Sometimes it’s 2 or 3am. She goes back to her bed then. Other times, like this morning, it’s 6:30 or 7. She can stay for awhile then.

However, this morning she stayed long enough my arm went to sleep… and my back was telling me it’s time to move. And I told T about it… fully believing S was sound asleep. To my surprise, S said, “Turn over Momma, I’ll rub your back.” Then she snuggled in more… LOL.

“I can’t, Baby, you are on my arm.” She got up so I could turn over, and then she laid her head on my back and started lightly tapping me… for about ten seconds.

This precious little girl is the one the drs. wanted to abort. I think about it every time I see that sweet smile. Every time she puts that little hand in mine, I am reminded how they told me she wasn’t worth keeping. They were wrong. Thank you, Jesus, they were very wrong.

How much mess can 4 kids make in 24 hours? Really? It’s unbelievable! Then try adding their parents into the mix and WOW!

OK, so for the parents it takes a little more than 24 hours… T was messing with some power tools over the weekend… and didn’t plug the freezer in the garage back in… and yes, a thawing freezer, even one that is not totally full, makes a big mess.

Last night all I wanted to do was sit down and actually eat dinner with my kids. I opened a brand new bottle of Gatorade, poured 3 glasses, and poured the rest of it into a refrigerator bottle and shut the door. I probably sat there ten minutes before G says, “Look at that big yellow mess!” Now, knowing there was nothing yellow in that direction and that my boys often wish to “trick” me, I didn’t even bother looking. Another five minutes, maybe, and J says, “Oh, my! That’s a big orange mess.” OK… Now, I must look… and yes… there on the floor was a big puddle of Gatorade. I’m guessing the door hit the spout on the bottle, and the whole time I sat at the table, Gatorade ran freely in my fridge, and onto the floor!

On to tonight, where K waited patiently, or so I thought, for me to get her food ready… once I got to the table, I found her happily sucking on the spoon she had grabbed from the sour cream sitting on the table, and sour cream from ear to ear… yes, she’s not quite seven months old…

Then there’s G, who got a bath tub shark yesterday. You know, the kind that you pull the string, and the tail flips back and forth so that it “swims.” He wants to play with it in the shower…and grabs a cup. I told him no, he was NOT stopping the drain in the shower… if he wanted the shark to swim, he could get into the tub. End of story… NOT. No, I walked into the bath room to get K’s bath ready and found water running on the floor… from under the shower door! This young man found ANOTHER cup and did it anyway. Off to bed with that one.

Then S gets out of the other shower to show me her boo-boo on her knee (shower still running). As I am trying to dry K and get her pjs on, I tell S to go show Daddy. (It takes several times before she actually goes.) He comes into the bathroom where I am still trying to get K dry and into pjs, saying, “It’s a good thing she got me… she tried to pull a G! The water in the tub was about 4 inches from the top.”

I’m going to bed!