And then there was...so many!!

I love my kids.

I mean, just look at 'em!

Yup, I made those! Well, ElRey helped, too.

I was blessed with awesome kids.

I know many people that have five, six, even eight kids and I admire them and think they are amazing because they can take that on, but, I tell you what: four girls is A LOT! My friend, who also has four kids, and I have a running joke that four feels like too many because it IS too many! Each child demands special attention and when you're the only parent around to give that, most of the time, it can become very overwhelming. It's overwhelming when both parents are tag teaming the attention, too. Mostly parenting is overwhelming. Period.

Case in point: The other morning I was working on getting everyone ready for school, which is always super fun. This particular morning I had one kid that needed to shower and I happened to be using the bathroom. In the one and only working bathroom in our house. There was another daughter who also needs to use the bathroom IMMEDIATELY. So, I finish my 'bidnes', one daughter is getting in the shower and the other is hoping around in the hallway. I say, "I'm done, I'm just washing my hands. You can go now."
       "But I want everyone out of the bathroom," she says.
       "Sorry but your sister needs to shower. You're just going to have to go while she's in here," I say.
She continues to hop around but now adds whimpering and a whiny moan to her routine.
      "Babe," I say with as much early morning patience I can muster, "If you gotta go, go! There's no such thing as privacy in our home so just go!"

That's when I leave her to move on to other attempts at getting them all ready for school and get myself ready for my run immediately after they go. So I'm trying to make my shake and my two year old is 'helping' me. As she goes to shake up the blender to get things moving, she kind of knocks it off the spinner (I'm getting technical now!)a little so it makes this really loud sound and as I'm running back in to fix it and console the now crying baby, my other daughter starts bawling because she's pretty sure she deleted "Flappy Bird" and can't get it back now. So, I'm holding my baby, trying talk my one daughter 'off the ledge', hollering to the others to hurry and get dressed with one asking where her leggings are in a panic because she simply cannot wear anything but leggings, while the showered one stands there in the middle of the living room, in her towel 'air drying' (because why would we use a towel to dry off? While still in the bathroom? That's weird.) We're down to about 20 minutes before we have to leave and we're searching for shoes and amputating limbs brushing hair, suddenly the two year old has to go potty and she couldn't possibly go on her own, she needs her mother there to watch and then cheer her on only to have the child say, "hmphf" at my praise and I'm trying to guzzle my shake wishing it was a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit.

When I finally get the older ones to school and successfully stayed out of McDonald's drive thru, it takes everything in me to not crawl back into bed. I don't always win that battle.

We won't even talk about about that fun thing called 'homework'.

Now, I wouldn't trade places with anyone. Except maybe that beach bum I saw in Laguna Beach. I bet his life is awesome but I couldn't imagine my life any other way.

I am pretty sure that when my kids found out they were coming to me, they were hoping for a mom that didn't wake up like a bear being disturbed way before her hibernation is over only to discover someone ate the last salmon. Or a mom that didn't forget what they just told her 20 minutes ago. And maybe a mom that didn't eat all the goodies while they were at school. I'm pretty sure they thought they would get a mom that would never ever dance like a dork at red lights while Katy Perry sings about a lion or something.

But I was planning on kids that brought me breakfast in bed at noon that did all my chores, did drink runs for me and braided my hair while the other one rubbed my feet and another gave me a manicure.

So, yeah, a lot of dreams have died.

But even though there is just waaaaay too many of us in our small house and there's a lot of screaming and crying (mostly ElRey ;) ), we're doing our best to make a happy home.

One scream/tantrum/bawl fest at a time.

Why is there a wet towel on the living room floor??