friday night, and all is well

Emily is sitting at the diningroom/kitchen table with Margaret, 11, and Kathryn 10. They are starting a 1000 piece puzzle. Oh dear. I cannot resist puzzles. I become addicted. There must be a chemical reaction in my brain when two, three pieces fit.....

The younger ones are in bed, and some of the older ones are still out. Abigail, our second oldest, she's 21, has taken some of the youth girls over to visit a friend, Missy, who can't always make it to activity club. Missy is 19, and she has Cerebal Palsy. She cannot speak, but she sure can communicate. She has alot of spirit, and she loves when the girls come over to watch movies with her. I often dream of her in heaven, where she can talk....

Anyway, Enola: if you are reading this: my kids are pop-tart kids. Your comment about taking both kids somewhere, and how it was probably easy for me: wrong. Today, when I went shopping with my three little ones, with Molly, 14, helping: I said to my sister-in-law, "If I ever get the bright idea that we can go somewhere without any older ones to help, please set me straight and remind me how crazy it gets...." I said that today. Because it is crazy with little ones sometimes. With one, and with two, and with three....they poop, they protest, they take out their cute little ponytails. They take off their shoes between errands, and they spit up on their cute little clothes. They fuss for things they cannot have, and we appease them with what we can afford. They insist they can buckle themselves, then cry for help after we get all buckled in ourselves. They put their own shoes on the wrong feet, and want to wear ugly sweaters. They drop things that I cannot possibly retrieve as we drive down the highway. But they rejoice at the firetrucks, the river, the phone company trucks, and fast food french fries.

I have learned a few things along the way, but mostly I think that the more kids I have, the less I know. I do know this: they are cute and funny and innocent, and I am honored to be their mother. I need to work hard sometimes to be patient and kind, sometimes to tears. It is not natural for me. I am frustrated and bored and selfish by nature. Anyway, I just wanted to reassure Enola that she is a wonderful mom, and tell her: don't compare yourself to how you think others are, those moms of your daughter's peers....we are all relatively the same, just floundering here, some can put on a better show than others...

Daughters....I have alot of them, eleven. They need to know they are beautiful. They need to know they deserve respect. I read once on someone's blog that the dad treated the daughters as princesses, so they had some standards of how they expected to be treated by any possible future husbands....I thought that was great. The world is such a harsh place.....

Well, I am so tired tonight I feel like I've had a few, which I haven't.....so goodnight...