What have I done?

Trevor and I knew we wanted 3 kids from the beginning. We both grew up 3 children households, and we were both middle children ourselves. What were we thinking?? Ryan was a semi planned-semi surprise baby. The doctor had told us that we might have trouble getting pregnant, so I guess we showed her when I showed up the next month to use her OB services instead of the GYN side. When Ryan was 5 months we decided to have Elijah. Our third baby was supposed to be a couple years down the road from Elijah, so we were shocked when  we found about Ariana just 10 months later. And here we are: 3 kids under 3 years apart. What a lesson in patience! We've decided to raise the kids according to the fruits of the spirit. If it doesn't show love, kindness, goodness, gentleness or self-control then we probably shouldn't be doing it. It applies to the way the kids treat each other, but also to the way we treat the kids.

The boys are now in their rooms so I don't break my own rule.

So far today the boys have done: smeared chapstick all over my bedroom furniture, break a snowglobe we got as a wedding gift, gouge a hole in the wall (from what and how I don't know), dump 2 loads of clean clothes in with a load of dirty clothes and mix them together so I don't know what's what, chew up a paci for the baby, unscrew a sippy of milk and dump it out on the carpet, refuse to take a nap, scream and wake up their sleeping sissy when I try to force said nap, pee all over their bedroom toys (I might just throw them away and teach them a real lesson!), dump all their clothes out of their dresser, and mangle our tv into such chaos I can't decipher it.


It's days like today when I wonder what we were thinking having 3 kids. Not that I don't love my kids or would do anything different. Well, maybe that's not true... if I had my "ideal" plan, I'd keep the boys the same, then have Ariana and another little girl when the boys were 4 and 5 years old. But for now, I'm trying to show my kids love, and I'm glad that they are so close together so that even though Ariana won't have a little sister to be best friends with, at least she has her big brothers. And at least I don't have 4 of them... Mommy's got all she take right now!