crazy

"insanity is hereditary;  you get it from your children" ~ Sam Levenson

When my kids go to school I miss them like crazy and when they are home they drive me crazy.  I have come to the conclusion that I may just be crazy.  There are so many beautiful things about having children and when I ponder the experience as a whole I am left speechless.  Being a mother is the most precious gift and I write about that often.  However to keep things real, it is also extremely hard and exhausting and frustrating as well.  

The kids wrapped up school last Thursday.  By 8am on Friday I had to address negative behavior from all four of my children.  Some of them mulitple times.  There had also been three injuries.  And did I mention that it was only 8am.  My children have always been early risers.  Not only do they rise early but they jump out of bed ready to take on the world.  Now that they are older we let them get up whenever they wanted, make themselves some breakfast and go ahead and start their day.  That system came to a crashing halt a few months ago when I was awoken at 6 am by the sounds of siblings fighting downstairs in the living room.  I generally view myself as a morning person but I do not respond well to this type of alarm clock.  So the boys are not allowed out of their beds until 6:30am and the girls have to wait in their beds in their rooms until I come get them up around 7.  I am a huge proponent of getting up before your children and prepregnancy use to rise no later than 5:30 everyday.  That all went out the window after I became pregnant, hopefully one day I can get back on that schedule.  I would also like to add that for some reason on school days we never had this problem.  I had to actually drag the boys out of bed by 7 am so they wouldn't be late for school.  But come Saturday they would pop right out of bed, like a race horse out of the starting gate, by 6am.  It is a mystery.

We have now completed our first week of summer vacation.  We have had lots of fun enjoying the freedom of not being tied to the school bells.  We quickly found our summer rhythm, started our summer studies, and spent lots of time playing outside.  I personally love not being tied to my watch.  The watch still has to come out on days of doctors appointments and therapy days, but I cherish the days when the watch can just stay in the bathroom drawer.  So while we have a certain flow to the days, things don't have to happen at exactly 1pm everyday.  This is the season I feel most like myself.

I have four very passionate children.  They love hard and they fight hard.  All four of them.  I have discovered a few truths about adding children to your family.  Even if you simplify your life, there is always a constant motion swirling around you.  And the second is, the more you have the less likely it is that everyone will be in a good mood at the same time...or be making good choices...or be getting along with their siblings.   But it truly does make the moments when everyone is getting along and having fun golden.  And in that moment I think, having children is the best - we should have more.  And there is the proof that I am going crazy.