The last two nights Jon has been gone (first as a teacher helping with graduation and enjoying a little night life in Sebastopol where he can walk home after a couple of beers and impromptu jam sessions with other midnight tokers; and then as a musician playing for the party of a friend) so even though I did have help with Jasper I was still left with 5 kids awake both nights. Putting five kids to bed alone at night is not the most fun thing in the world, ok I will be honest, it is nearly impossible, except that they always do eventually fall asleep.
Last night was particularly burly with a moment where I counted 4 screaming kids at the same time.
When Jasper's helper left he was quiet and possibly asleep... then Jillian started in on her bedtime antics which usually are only quelled by me holding the door tight until she gives up and falls asleep, (at least last night she fell asleep in her bed instead of her usual spot on the floor!) Pretty soon Juniper had to give her input with an almost 6 year old sized wail of her own. I just had to breathe and tell myself again that no one ever died from crying... but I can't leave my baby crying on my bed where she was just lovingly nursed to sleep and left with video monitor on after my ninja-like exit... and now is awake from all the crying! and I can't leave Jasper to slam himself further up into the corner of his bed pressing his fat lip from the night before and biting the inside of his cheek so that it is swollen to look like a one-sided case of the mumps.... and I can't leave my post at Jillian's door or she will come out and wreak havoc; so I tell Juniper in my calm/angry voice that I will not be able to lie with her or read to her because her yelling and crying has woken up the three children who are needier than she is on the totem pole... would she like to visit the garage to cry loudly or stay here quietly? we compromised by letting her have the light on and she fell asleep without much more fuss. I was amazed that I was able to get through it without totally losing my temper, but that's how it is with 5 kids sometimes, survival means throwing out the philosophy and doing what works in the moment. This may not be the best thing for long term but neither is crash and burn... which also happens from time to time. We are all learning together, the kids remind me about keeping my temper in check and I remind them to do just about everything else.
So Yesterday amid the chaos it was my Dad's birthday. He lives way up in Vancouver Washington and I don't see him much, but I had his birthday on the calendar because I know that we are some of the few people he considers family and he is always very thoughtful of us and I also know that although he may not admit it he is pretty sensitive to whether people think of him or remember him on holidays and his birthday. And.. I failed yesterday in calling him, of course I did. Last Saturday, one week prior to his birthday, I looked at the calendar and thought I had forgotten but it was still a decent time to call so I got the kids together and we sang a beautiful rendition of Happy Birthday in three part harmony with lots of cha-cha-cha's at the end only to realize 10 minutes later that I was looking at the wrong day on the calendar and it was actually the next week. Fast forward to last night and after the crying episode, mommy holding the nursing baby with one hand and the toddler's door closed with the other, yelling at Juniper to get back in bed, adjusting Jasper and asking Jonah to help... when the ashes settled I just wanted to relax and watch netflix. That's when I looked at the clock and saw that it was 10:10 and I had forgotten to call my dad on his birthday. Well it was too late but I called and left a long rambling apologetic message anyway because I was so sure I was going to remember, it was on my calendar after all! The gig that Jon had was not on the calendar so that's why I was left alone with all the kids, but my dad's birthday was up there for weeks.... it never fails that the more I worry about forgetting something the more likely I am to forget it!
Thinking of my dad led me to contemplate my family and how different my childhood was from the one my kids are having so far. Recently Juniper decided that Jon and I should get "unmarried". She had heard Irene (Jasper's nurse) say this when they were talking about why Irene was not married but was a mother. She is always asking people if they are married or have kids (her teacher got engaged this year), she was also very perplexed as to why I was in the wedding pictures of my mom and Harold, because aren't you supposed to get married and THEN have kids? I explained that my dad and mom had split up and my mom married Harold who was my step-dad when I was about her age. Well I know she wants to be a flower girl in a wedding so I could see how her wheels were turning... if I just found another guy to marry then we could have a wedding and she could wear a beautiful dress with flowers in her hair and be the flower girl like I had been at the wedding of my mom and step dad. Having a step dad didn't sound bad to her, I sure liked mine! Hey two dads must be better than one huh? So Juniper set about telling us that unless Daddy got me something really super nice within three days then I was going to have to become unmarried to him and probably get a step dad.... She had some good points although her logic was selfish and immature, she insisted that we were not good together and that we fight all the time. It is very easy for adults to give too much credence to the words out of the mouths of babes. We think that their inexperience with the world gives them an unbiased perspective and an ability to tell the truth that grown-ups don't have, but I don't think so. In this case Juniper was testing her manipulation skills to the extreme... what would we say? I explained to her that we may fight but we always make up and that even though we don't always speak nicely to each other we always love each other, and that most of all we love our family and we love our kids and we want to raise them together. I told her that there are many types of families, we know many kids who have two mommies (who are together) and many who go back and forth between their mom and dad, and many whose parents are still together, I explained that one way is not necessarily better and that different people have different types of families and that we had decided to do it together. I am grateful for this experience because I get to see what I missed out on being an only child of a "broken home", (and possibly how easy my mom had it as a mom of two girls 11 years apart.) Even though Juni is right, and I could go looking for a handsomer prince to sweep me further off my feet, I am happy where I am with the prince who has become king in my heart. It may not be a fairy tale but the reality is that even though there are some really hard and trying times they make the good times all the sweeter. Human nature in it's constant state of duality teaches us that the best things are the hardest things, the most bitter weeds make the sweetest honey...
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