Fail

These past few weeks I've failed at taking any pictures, failed at starting to fill out Leah's baby book, failed at getting anything on my "To Do" list accomplished, and feel like some days I'm just failing as a mom. Being tired, scatterbrained, and unorganized has a lot to do with it. I need a sleeping vacation.

As I sit here at the doorway of the boy's room hoping that Paul will go to sleep and take a nap (he's been getting up and down, playing, singing, ect, for an hour now), I thought I'd write out the day in the life of our family right now.... mainly just so I can remember what it was like with 3 kids under the age of 4.
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Day starts at 1am because that's when the kids are waking up for the first or second time of the night. Mostly sleeping from 2-6:59am, that's when Josiah barges in the room exclaiming that it's time to get up and he's hungry.  I nurse Leah to get her to go back to sleep. In the 10 minutes I was nursing her and put her back down, Paul has pooped and is wiping his poop all over the chair in the living room.  Meanwhile, Josiah has climbed up on the stool, that he pushed to the fridge, and reached up on top of the fridge to grab the semi-sweet chocolate chips, I have to hide for this very reason, and already has chocolate all over his face and hands.

"What are you eating?" I ask.
"Nothing, nothing mom, don't worry about it."
"Where is the bag of chocolate chips?"
"Behind the couch."  Yeah, I heard him throw it as I was coming out of the room.

Clean up their messes... but, what is poo and what is chocolate? Yuck! "Smell before you taste", that's what I have to remind Josiah. Change Paul's diaper, and turn on PBS cartoons. Make breakfast. They inhale it and leave a 4 foot radius of food on the floor underneath them. Make myself some hot earl grey tea and sit down to eat breakfast. Leah wakes up as I bring the fork to my mouth for my first bite.  Nurse her while I eat. Change her. Break up the boys fighting. Clean up breakfast. Start a load of laundry. It's only 9:30.

Now I ask Josiah to get his pajamas off and put his clothes on and every single day it is the same scenario.

"NOOOOOO I'm NOT going to put my clothes on!!!!!"  saying this as he is jumping up and down and clenching his fists.
Me:  "Go to your room. You have 10 minutes until the timer goes off, if you don't have your clothes on you get to stay in your room for timeout and then we start over again."
"NOOOOOOOOO, I WILL NOT!!"  now he's thrown himself on the floor and kicking.
Me: "The timer is set. You have 10 minutes."
"AHHHHAAAHHH NNNOOOOO, GRRRRRR!" Kicking, screaming, throwing all of the covers off of his bed. This lasts 5-6 minutes.  Then all of a sudden it's like a switch flips and he comes to look at the timer, runs to his room and gets his clothes on.  I have no idea why he does this every day.

Then I ask him to put his covers back on the bed, and have to set the timer again because a similar scenario plays out.  I guess he just doesn't like being told what to do.

After the scream-fest is over, I jump in the shower while Leah hangs out in her bouncer in the bathroom. She's so happy, talking and squealing with delight.  The second the boys hear the shower turn off, they run up, bang on the door and yell, "WE'RE HUNGRY!!!" Seriously, I feed these children every 2 hours all day long.  Many times I ask God, Why couldn't you have made it so our bodies only needed 1 meal a day, that would have made a mother's life so much easier. haha! I make them a fruit, oats, flaxseed, and yogurt smoothie.  They inhale it. I finish getting dressed, feed Leah, clean up her poo explosion, and rock her.  The boys become increasingly louder and louder when I am trying to get Leah to go to sleep. They are sent downstairs to play.  Leah goes to sleep. I put her down. Run downstairs to see what they've been up to. We play cooking in the kitchen for a while, I switch out the laundry, and then it's time to figure out lunch. Try to do a craft with the boys, it lasts all of 7 minutes, then they are bored and there's another huge mess to clean up. Justin comes home, the boys attack him and they wrestle. Leah wakes up. We eat lunch and then ahhh, glorious nap time. Or so I hope.

On a good day, the boys are both finally asleep by 1:30.  Clean up lunch. Fold a load of laundry. Wrack my brain for dinner ideas (I have majorly fallen off of the meal planning train, I neeeed to start doing it again!).  Nurse and rock Leah.  Put her down. 13 seconds later Paul wakes up. Hold him while he does his usual post-nap crying, whining, 'nothing works to make him happy' fit. 10 minutes later Josiah wakes up. Hold both boys as they wake up, turn on Wild Kratts on PBS. We watch it every day at 3pm. Start to get frantic about dinner.  I eventually come up with something. Feed the boys a snack. Start dinner prep.  Leah wakes up. Nurse her. Break up fighting. Tell the boys to go play in separate rooms or go outside! (yeah I know it's cold, but sometimes they'll play for 30 minutes or so!)

Justin comes home between 4-4:30. The boys attack him and they play cars and build a tower with blocks. Leah happily plays in her bouncer while I cook.  Eat dinner about 5:30.  Josiah throws his usual "I don't want to eat dinner" fit! He goes to his room until he is ready to stop whining and crying and sit at the table and eat.  5 minutes later he joins us.  Paul eat all of the veggies and bread first and might touch his meat. He makes virtually no mess.  Josiah eats everything but the veggies, but he eventually does, he usually has to eat at least 5 bites of everything on the plate.  Josiah leaves a 4 foot radius of mess around his plate and chair.

Justin helps clean up the dinner mess and I feed Leah. We play, do a puzzle, give baths, feed the boys AGAIN, and by 7:45 it is book reading time.  Justin sits in the doorway of the room while they go to sleep.  The problem isn't Josiah, it's Paul.  He will get up and out of bed a thousand times.  About 8:45 they are out.  While they are going to sleep, I pick up the house, fold laundry, eat semi-sweet chocolate chips to satisfy my chocolate craving, and clean up another one of Leah's poo explosions.  Justin lays on the couch and he is in and out of consciousness with the TV on while I nurse and rock Leah.  She wakes up at 9:30, ready to play again.  Justin goes to bed, he's getting up at 3:30am to go workout before work so he needs some sleep! I try to read my bible, do my bible study. At 10:30, someone is screaming and both boys are awake.  Go put them back to bed. At 11, Leah finally goes to sleep. Finish doing my bible study.  Go to sleep around 11:30.  Whew it's been a long day. Did I accomplish anything?