real life

Monday's sunrise was beautiful. Not an indication of how our day would play out. 

I wish I could say yesterday was awesome. That our first day without daddy home was quiet and peaceful and pleasant. But it wasn't. Even with my mom and Harper here for part of the day to keep us company (and provide an additional set of adult hands), it was a day of survival. The girls still weren't feeling well. One was overly sensitive and the other was downright mean, making for a bad combination and lots of bickering. Nobody slept well the night before, least of all me, and lack of sleep does nothing to help patience, logic, or stamina. At one point, I was nursing Noah, Laci was wailing in her room about some toy Mia took from her, and Mia was standing on a stool emptying the contents of a kitchen drawer. I just shook my head at the whole situation and figured that since no one was bleeding, then there was no reason to react. Minutes later, Ryan drove in the driveway and, like a magical switch had flipped, the girls were running out the door to greet him with smiles and squeals (but without pants).

Of course, their joy quickly wore off. We made it to dinner time, but after Mia decided that, instead of eating, she would cry about not getting whipped cream for an hour (no really, an hour), we opted for early baths and bedtime. After his sisters had gone to sleep, Noah decided to become "baby that falls asleep easily but wakes up ten minutes later." He performed his trick four times before I hid in a steaming hot shower hoping the world would be somehow different when I emerged. It wasn't, but at least I was clean. 

Needless to say, I survived the day, and the evening, and the night. And like any bad day, it was just that: a bad DAY. It is over and today was much better. 

And the bright spot in that terrible day yesterday?  Seeing a stack of colorful paper scraps on my nightstand as I got ready for bed. It was a moon and stars that Laci had colored and cut out for Noah. "These will help him go to sleep," she had told me earlier in the day. These kids, I tell you, they know how to fire you up and they know how to make you melt. And they almost always know just when to turn on the charm to save themselves from momma gone crazy.

Tomorrow, I think we will hang that moon and stars on Noah's bed.