Today was not the smoothest morning for our family. Solly woke up in a pool of milk that he had clearly thrown up earlier in the night. It broke my heart to see SO MUCH of it surrounding his body, with the bottom half of his face crusted over. Being the ill-prepared mother that I am, I didn’t have an extra sleeper in our room for him, and it was far too early to duck into Laela’s room to retrieve any of his clothing. I grabbed a spare receiving blanket that we keep in the diaper bag, undressed the little dude, and we just had some lovely skin time to keep him nice and warm, and in turn, to settle his tummy a little. We obviously dosed off together a little, but while he is by far our snuggliest baby, he doesn’t appreciate the sweat aspect of skin time, and became uncomfortable after twenty minutes or so. I swaddled him all up in his blanket and we slept a little more.
When it was time to get the big ones, it just seemed like everyone got off on the wrong foot. Dekker was arguing almost constantly with all of us. I even heard him rudely chastise Rowan, which is almost unheard of for him. Laela was the peach of the group, trying to pacify everyone around her. Her sharing was on point, and she followed all of Dekker’s orders perfectly. But the moment she hesitated at all, all hell broke loose and she would SCREAM! Not like throw a fit, but its like her warning alarm. DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! I don’t blame her for having one, but that shriek is piercing! Rowan also did a lot of screaming today, but he screams when he is feeling any kind of “out of sorts.” Sore gums equal screaming. Fatigue equals screaming. Hunger equals screaming. Sitting at the floor staring at the wall equals screaming. I anticipate the day when he knows more than five words. Communication makes things SO much easier!
This all being said, they had their moments.
Its good to remember that they love each other, even if it only really showed for a minute or two today. They’re all exceptional kids.
Rowan was napping by 11:00am, and Solly was sleeping around the same time, so I got the kids some muffins and bananas and sat them in front of the tv to regroup a little bit. I used that time to get ready for the rest of the day.
Because we are suckers for punishment, Brady and I opted to head to the city in the evening. We had only a few errands to run, but some were important, and some were just things we had been putting off and forgetting about. Unfortunately, Brady arrived home to a bit of a mad house. I think at least two of the kids were crying upon his arrival. At least. I was trying to feed Solly, but the activity around us was terribly distracting, and he was struggling a little bit. However, to my credit, I was ready, everyone was dressed, and the diaper bag was packed! We just needed to load everyone up! This was done amongst many tears, but it was done nonetheless. Usually lunch and a brain break helps everyone regroup, but MAN it didn’t today! Yikes!
We hit up Starbucks first and foremost 🙂 I am LOVING the vanilla sweet cream cold brew these days, so I grabbed that, along with a big hazelnut coffee syrup that was on sale. Woot! From there, we stopped off at a friends house to drop something off, and then headed for supper. We grabbed some food at Wendy’s, but Solly was TICKED, so we drove and ate so he could sleep.
Walmart was the win of the day. Our kids love Walmart. And especially today, so did we. We bought a vacuum and new pillows! That might not seem super exciting to anyone else but we’re sure happy! We snagged a couple of other cosmeticish things we keep forgetting and we were done! The entire time we were in Walmart, everyone was happy and cooperative. Except Solly, I suppose, because he pooped while I carried him. Not cool, dude.
We filled up the van with gas, and headed home. From pulling into the garage to getting into bed, they all cried. I couldn’t tell you why today was such a brutal day for them, but my goodness, it was! However, every day I am given with my family is a great one! God is good.