Life with 3 and having a "Good Day"

I had to write a little post about life with 3.  I remember an older mom telling me to write down as much as you can because you forget what your days where like or what your kids where like at this time, especially with all the lack of sleep.  The first 4-5 months of life with 3 were exhausting but sweet.  I had help around for almost the first 3 months of Elsie's life, and summertime is a nice time to have a newborn and watch the older children play!  As the end of the summer/fall of 2010 started rolling around i started to feel a lot more like pulling out my hair!  I think the thing that is hard with the job of caring for children is there is no such thing as cutting corners.  In most professions you learn what corners are o.k. to cut and you learn how to complete your work in the time given you.  But with children, there are just no corners to cut!  Now it is recommended to nurse for the first 2 years of life which for me means that there needs to be some nursing going on in the middle of the night.  The older children should not be eating much processed food and lots of healthy stuff which takes so much time.  They recommend little to no tv at these young ages so there goes that free babysitter! And as a mom i need to be kind and patient with my children and consistent with my expectations and discipline.  So how can i do all this without cutting corners?  Whenever an elderly person sees me with my kids they get nostalgic and say "hold them and enjoy them as much as you can.  They grow so fast".  I have always tried to do this - not being involved in anything else but caring for them but still i don't think i have totally understood these words til i had #3!  I came to a point in the fall that i realized i was getting snappy, that i was trying so hard to get things for the kids to eat and cleaned up and do some laundry and i just couldn't do it while watching the kids.  The house isn't set up so i can see them at all times while i am in the kitchen, the yard isn't fenced in and sometimes stray dogs/coyotes come through.  There just wasn't a way to supervise them the way they needed to be, and care for a newborn and get stuff done.  So i had to let go of it all - and spend my days on the floor with the kids as long as i needed to til they were older.  It was a humbling time - about 9 months of basically going "backwards" in what was accomplished during the day.  There was remnants of food from breakfast, lunch and supper all over the house, 6-7 loads of laundry just sitting, toys everywhere.  But it was such a sweet time.  I sat and nursed Elsie, helped her while she was in the crawling stage to keep her from destroying everything her brothers were doing, gave lots of cuddles with the boys, read books, helped them figure out how to apologize to eachother and play together by modeling it.  We learned the 10 commandments and the "love chapter" together and talked about ways to apply the concepts in them.  I took naps with Elsie or the boys and didn't stress about trying to get food on the table for supper.  Stephen and i learned to tag team meals/childcare more in the evenings and Saturday morning turned into him taking the boys out, Elsie napping and me catching up on a weeks worth of dishes or laundry.  Stephen and I let go of the expectation of having a few hours of "down time" in the evening after the kids went to bed and used it to talk a few minutes and get some sleep!  We knew there wouldn't be much sleep during the night!  Of course, looking back now i realize that i really should have gotten some help during that time.  But sometimes it is hard to realize that when you are in the midst of craziness!  Makes you long for a time when families lived close and some of these responsibilities were shared with others.  In my mind during this time i had to retrain my mind about what a "good day" was.  I know all of us moms have a lot to juggle - work, deployed husbands, kids close in age, an only child who needs you as a constant playmate, etc.!  For me, i decided THIS was a good day:  

• I've had a good day.  I was up 5 times during the night.  Nursing, recovering Jack because he wakes up needing  to be recovered, brought Andrew to bed with us with a leg ache, nursing and sleeping with Elsie to help her with her teething.  I slept in til the kids got up and didn't have time to shower, have "devotions", or exercise but i did what needed to be done. I resisted the urge to give Tylenol and nursed/comforted  Elsie instead to help her to sleep through teething.
• I've had a good day.  It took me 3 hours to finish breakfast and diaper changes.  But there was a lot of cuddles, nursing, reading of books and i took the time to cook a healthy breakfast for the kids.  
• I've had a good day.  I resisted the urge to clean but took the time to help the boys play well together by playing with them and helping them resolve conflict.  I read them books and even had a few minutes to brush my teeth:)
• I've had a good day.  It only took 2 hours to do lunch/nursing/diaper changes but we manged to eat something healthy and the kids had a great time practicing and talking about their 10 commandments.  Most important i have been patient with the kids and haven't gotten frustrated when they need the minute to minute hugs and physical reassurance.
• I've had a good day.  I got the kids down for naps when they needed the sleep instead of when i needed a break from them:)  I resisted the urge during nap time to take the 30 minutes that they all were asleep to clean.  I took a nap myself to get ready for "phase 2" of the day!
• I've had a good day.  After naps can be a needy time.  So i took an hour to hold each child, rock and sing as they needed.  I resisted the urge to turn on a video just so i could get something done and kept to limiting the tv to 1-2 hours per week. 
• I've had a good day.  I swallowed my pride about how the house looked and that there was no food ready for us to eat (let me insert here how wonderful/helpful/understanding my husband is!).  We both worked on supper and played with the kids and continued to care for them. We also resisted the urge to just order pizza or make mac n cheese (let me insert here that we do eat pizza or mac n cheese a good 1-2 times a week:) but took the time to make something a little more nutritious to eat.  O.k. so we ate the beans straight out of the can and the food right out of the pot, but we had a fun time together at the table and there was no stress about it!
• I've had a good day.  It only took us til 10 to get all the kids to bed.  We read the Bible, prayed with them and helped them get settled in to sleep.  We take a few minutes together to catch up before collapsing in bed.  It is a good feeling to go to sleep knowing that you accomplished the most important things, and left the other stuff undone.  

Of course not every day was quite as good as this one:)  But this was my goal and it was amazing to me how things did get done eventually when we had the right priorities with our kids.  And 9 months later it is fun to start seeing things change.  Elsie doesn't need as much nursing during the day and walks everywhere and can play a little better with her brothers with destroying everything they do.  The boys have grown and matured and are great pals playing together (well, most of the time:).  Life is starting to change a bit more and I can get a little more done.  It is fun to look back on that time and see how much i was stretched and learned!  Onto the next phase of parenting...