January Joy

I thought being a mother to a toddler and baby was tiring, but it turns out that being a mother to a big kid, a toddler AND a baby is even more tiring. Especially to the poor baby. When is the baby supposed to nap when the big kid needs to get to tennis lessons? And what does the big kid do while the toddler goes to gymnastics? And how do I get the baby to stop finding Cheetos while I read "The Wizard of Oz" to the big kid and the toddler? Whew. I am tired just writing all of that juggling down.

I hear it only gets worse from here. I hear the babies grow into toddlers who need more story hours and more gymnastics lessons, and that the toddlers grow to big kids who go to basketball clinics and Girl Scouts, and the big kids grow to teenagers who ask you for the keys to the car at which point the whole cycle ends because you become a giant baby yourself, curled into a fetal position and CRYING.

It is fun though, when all the worlds collide and all of you have fun together at the same time and no one is thrashing on the floor and screaming that their sleeve is wet and WHY? WHY? can't you GO AND GET ME ANOTHER SHIRT?. The planets aligned last night when we were all at church and Dean and I were watching Molly and Frankie sing praise songs and the baby was cheerily shouting "HI!" to everyone within arms' reach. Our hearts did a little swell to see my big girls linking arms with friends and kicking their legs like Rockettes along with songs that I think mentioned Jesus but I couldn't really hear above the drums and the bass guitar. When you add that the baby was giving out kisses, well, when you take away the sloppy-joe dinner, it was pretty much close to heaven.