A week has come and gone, and I have barely had time to sit down for even a few minutes. We have had the joy of having all 4 boys with us this week. Since our marriage, 3 years ago, this is the first time that I have spent all day every day for an entire week with our boys. As a sister, I know that sisters tease, and borrow each others stuff, and taunt, and annoy each other, but none of what we ever did compares to what brothers do to each other. With boys teasing involves "sword" fighting (with whatever crazy type of "sword" they can find); "borrowing" involves taking bean bag chairs out from under someone who is already sitting in it, or waiting until your brother leaves the room and then secretly using his stuff with the hope that he won't find out; taunting involves anything that will make your brother feel inferior; annoying includes every other waking moment. I swear, it is nonstop. The only days that we truly had peace and quiet were the 2 days that the boys were grounded from TV and video games for fighting. These should be the days of my life. I relished every minute that the boys were outside running through the sprinklers. I cherished the quiet of them reading the "new" books that Nana purchased for them 6 months earlier. I embraced the sound of laughter as the 3 of them sat around the kitchen table playing the game of Life. I even felt sentimental as Olie offered to share the popcorn he had made. These were the moments that I hoped would last, and didn't. It was within the first 5 minutes of having play station privileges back that the fighting began. Someone called someone a "cry baby" and what do you do when it is the truth. You teach your children not to lie, but is it more important to be honest or nice??? Ahhh, the age old question. As a parent, I did my duty and told Olie that he shouldn't call his brothers names, and then told Moo that he shouldn't be a cry baby and then his brothers wouldn't tell him that he was....which to my detriment only made him cry more...but, seriously, he was being a cry baby which is just not right for his age.
All I ask for is 1 day of happiness in our home. Just 1 day...we are getting there at times, I think. Sometimes we can go for a few hours of bliss, but then....wham, someone is mad at someone for something that I am sure I will find to be ridiculous...it is always the same. And still, I wouldn't trade them in (yet). My favorite part of the week was when I got to have a night with the girls. I started a Bunco group. It was our first game, and I was the hostess. So, D took the boys to the movie, by himself, just him and the boys...all 4 of them! I sent him out to the theatre that has restaurants inside so that he could buy them dinner so they could eat dinner during the movie. By the time they returned home (only 3 hours later), D was ready to trade them all in for puppies. Fuss wouldn't sit still during the movie (shocker). D had to stand with him and missed half the movie (funny how he doesn't mind when we go together and I have to miss half the movie). I asked what the boys had had for dinner. The response, "by the time we got popcorn, treats, and drinks, there was no time to go buy dinner." Really??? I have to ask myself where his fathering skills stepped in. In my dear, sweet husband's sense of reality did he really think that he would have an enjoyable time with 4 children ages 11 and younger if he fed them sugar, possibly caffine (he doesn't know how to say no), and popcorn without any nutritional value given to them prior? I wonder why it wasn't so much fun for him. At least it gave him a dose of my reality on a daily basis (at least for the last week).
My greatest joy in life has gone from trying to balance motherhood, working, housekeeping, cooking, etc...to just watching my husband balance fatherhood all on his own.
No comments:
Post a Comment