I get the comment "you've got your hands full" daily. Really, I ought to keep track. It's a great phrase loaded with so very much meaning, depending on who says it and what kind mischief/chaos we're leaving in our wake.
I'll almost always reply, "some days more than others," unless I literally have my hands full, in which case I'll say the brilliant, "and some times, literally!" I'm terrified that one of these random commentators will want to engage me in conversation, a perilous notion as someone's certain to head off for the stairs or fall out of a chair or run into the boy's bathroom while I'm trying to make nice with a Nosy Nancy or two.
There are days, though, in which I just really have my hands full - full of children, full of their needs, full of our family, full of its needs, full of my self and my needs, and full of bags with diapers and extra clothes and groceries and children and car keys and certain-to-be-misplaced but so-very-important doo-dads like random rubber bands or rings leftover from birthday parties.
Today was a hands-full day, but, unlike the busy days of late, it turned out pretty well. Despite the odds against us - a long, late night following a long, busy weekend; a vegetable pick-up; a grocery run; a fun day at the pool; the 1,000 degree weather - we managed to accomplish all that we needed to without ease, but with good spirits.
I'm solidly outnumbered as a mother. The sour moods of three children does us in; even two moody children can tip the scales into disaster.
So it was with some trepidation that we hopped out of the car, a sleepy baby in my arms, his baby carrier left behind at home, to pick up our vegetables.
Or when we drove to the market to pick up our milk for the week, a happy baby in the cart, his sleeping sister in my arms, a helpful big brother pointing out all of the different juice flavors and exotic-looking boxes of milk substitute.
So it all worked out. It almost always does. Except for when it doesn't. And there are those days too. (Tomorrow, I'm looking at you.)
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