Today I was on kiddie overload. Correction, my mom and I were on kiddie overload.

Yesterday, my vision of today was of a low key relaxing day spent with my husband, baby girl Celeste, and our bulldog Biggie. Unfortunately that image came to a screeching halt when my husband called me last night and told me that he’d been force hired, yet again, and had to work Saturday. Damn it! Yes, let’s be honest here, that was my initial thought because I look forward to the days my husband has off and seeing him, even if our day is juggled between responsibilities, the bottom line is I miss my husband when he’s at work. Well since I’m trying to keep a positive mind set, after a few silent curses, I thought, okay, let’s make the most of it, we have Sunday to look forward to.

The morning went by rather quietly, I got myself ready for the day, took care of Celeste’s feeding, walked Biggie while Celeste played with my dad and then she took a nap and that gave me a chance to clean up some dishes and do a little bit of studying.

Eventually I ended up at my mom’s house, this of course after realizing my dad had taken my car keys and so he had to come by and drop them off otherwise we’d be stranded here at home. My mom was nice enough to offer to watch Celeste since she was working anyway taking care of Carly, this is Celeste’s 1 1/2 yr old cousin whom my mom babysits 5 days a week. So I quickly ran my errand, went back to my mom’s, and proceeded to spend a couple hours talking with ATT (technical issues), playing with Celeste, chatting with my parents, and so on. But we weren’t even half way through the real fun.

My brother had already made plans a few days prior to drop off my niece Madison and my nephew Jacob at my parents house so that him and his wife could have a date night. Since my husband ended up having to work, I offered to keep my mom company with my niece and nephew. Little did I know what this meant.

So there we were, my mom and I with my 10 month baby and my 9 yr old niece and 6 yr old nephew…at Costco. Does anyone else imagine where this is going? It is like a constant juggling and talking match. When they’re getting a long, those two little monsters are a delight, but when one of them suddenly gets annoyed at the other or bothered by some insignificant thing, it’s a whole other ballgame. And mind you that they’re actually pretty good about paying attention to me, nevertheless though, it’s freakin exhausting! At one point I happend to talk to my brother and said to him in between laughing “well, we’re (my husband and I) definitely not having three!” 😉 I seriously have a new found respect for parents that juggle this many and more kids.

The evening went something like this…

wash your hands because you picked your nose, no – those things are not for you to play with, watch the baby she’s crawling behind you, don’t open the gate and let Biggie in, okay one of you is coming with me to walk Biggie so abuelita gets a break, auntie bonbon (this is what my niece/nephew call me) let’s talk about giants because I think I just saw one turn left, do you think you would like to be a giant, what about Biggie? I think I saw the giant go into the lake, I’ll watch behind us to make sure the giant doesn’t sneak up on us…

This pretty much went on the entire time. At one point we even played bubble time and Jake was jumping around popping bubbles, Celeste was excitedtly talking and laughing, my niece was drawing, and all the while I felt myself getting more and more exhausted. But my niece and nephew, they weren’t even phased.

I’m a pretty social and talkative person, but all this activity and interaction had my inner social butterfly utterly wiped out. Eventually the family visit ended, I got Celeste ready for bed time, and now as I sit here writing (while barely keeping my eyes open) I can’t help but think how much I LOVE this peace and quiet time.