The Gang's All Here

It's amazing that I can still eat after what I had to clean up this morning, and yet here I am, chowing on my cold cereal, ignoring briefly the screaming toddler at my feet.  I swear, I'm not cut out for this. But when I think about all the little crises I deal with on a daily basis and realize that we're all still alive, especially these little people God mistakenly entrusted to me, I think that maybe I could do anything.  I could climb Mt. Everest, except for the freezing my butt off and the lack of oxygen.
I know that my kids are destined to do great things in this world, because God took a young woman with no desire whatsoever for motherhood, and gave her such a yearning that she could not let it go until each one of these people was birthed on the planet.  You may look at me with my 5 kids, one carried kangaroo style and one looking like she could be the mom, and think "that poor woman."  She must be Catholic, or crazy or Mormon, or stupid, or too lazy to use birth control.  The truth is that I had to pray and wait for each of these blessings, and lose a couple on the way.  Each time we integrated another person into our family, I just felt that the picture wasn't complete.  

They are all here now, and the fog has lifted.  I now clearly see the challenge set out for me and it is terrifying and exhilarating.  Dealing with all of these bodily fluids is the easy part---we're moving into crushes and peer influence, and I'm facing the ghosts of my adolescent past.  How much do I share?  How soon?  Already my eldest is amazingly brighter, prettier, stronger, wiser than I was at that age. But I've got boys riding past our house on their bikes, texing, and requesting friendship on Facebook.  I need another cup of coffee.

Poopscepade

It all began so innocently.  After being up with Juju at 3am, I just wanted to grab a couple of extra minutes of sleep.  He crawled out of my bed and started toddling around the kitchen.  I could hear him in there talking to himself and calling out to siblings to wake up.  My body was in one of those uber relaxed sleepy states, and I told myself, "he's fine, he'll find the legos on the floor and play for a little bit.  A few minutes later he came back to the bedside and tried to climb up.  Having some difficulty, he said "Uh oh."  I took pity on him,  leaned over to pull him up, and got an armful of nasty stinky poo.  Holy crap, indeed...it was everywhere.  All over him, all over the sheets (because apparently this is why he crawled out of bed in the first place), tracked through the house.  With no coffee on board, I was at a total disadvantage.

Game plan: throw baby in bath, brew coffee, strip sheets, do detail.  I thought I had it all under control, when I came around a corner and found it smeared on the floor and my treadmill.  I think my husband put him up to this. At this point, I just want my mommy, but if I called her she'd just laugh and remind me of the time I did the same but worse.  Moral of the story? Don't sweat the small stuff.