Above photo was the scene at 10:00 this morning. The photo does not even come close to capturing the mayhem that was my life at that moment. The boys had gotten into my gift-wrapping stash and gone haywire with the yellow and orange spools of ribbon. Braydon left the house early this morning to attend to some business at work. The boys were up and at ’em at 7:00 sharp and for whatever reason they were going-going-going NON-STOP from 7-10:00, while I tried to supervise the activities to keep destruction to a minimum. In such periods my primary concern is their safety. Secondarily I’m concerned about the health and well-being of our two cats. Third in my list of priorities is the condition of the material possessions in our home. Every day is crazy-making with these two. No doubt about it. But it seems to be the case that some days are just more exhausting than others. No rhyme or reason. Just is what it is. And today was one of those days. By 10:00 a.m., when Alex arrived, I said to her, “Alex, honestly, I cannot believe it is only 10:00. I feel like I’ve had an entire day already. And I haven’t even gone to work yet.” At that moment the boys ran into the kitchen with the ribbon fiasco in full gear. Kyle, completely naked, was “dragging” Owen, still in his pjs, by the neck/throat. I couldn’t tell if Owen was laughing or choking (turned out he was laughing), but I grabbed the camera, clicked once (the shot above), kissed the boys, and said, “Have a good day Alex!” and retreated to my office. After lunch Alex took the two rascals to Musikfest (click here). Lord only knows how she has the gumption to do all these things with them — but God love her for it (God knows we love her for it). And THANK YOU LORD FOR ALEX. AMEN. When they returned home Kyle was beaming with his first ever face painting (even I, in my exhaustion, had to admit that he was incredibly cute in his face-painting-Elmo-sheer-happiness). He reported they had “played drums,” “heard music,” and “jumped” in a moonbounce thing. And ~~hallelujah~~ Owen — butterfly face painted and all — had fallen asleep on the way home in Alex’s car. They were both in bed by 7:00 tonight, despite Owen putting up his usual waaay-too-tired-“I caaaaaaaaaan’t go night nights”-fight. And currently Braydon is off to pick up take out burritos. I gotta end this post now so that I can go mix up some margaritas. Hopefully that will take the edge off. And then hopefully we’ll both be sound asleep before too long. Tomorrow starts another crazy day around here.
