From 3 to 6

I am temporarily a mother of 6 for the next week. How do you mothers with 6 keep it all together??? The kids have been great, absolute wonders. It's me I'm worried about. Yesterday morning, day 1 of caring for 6 we get Maddy off for her field trip at 7 am (thanks Josh!), at 7:15 I open the fridge and there's her lunch. I leave the kids with Preston, get in the car going 70 in a 45 zone cause I'm thinking I would cry if I didn't get to eat lunch, barely make it before the buses take off, back in the car pushing 60 this time cause the adrenaline is still pumping wildly through my veins.

Then it's drop off Pres and Charley at school, run errands with a baby who has needed a nap for a couple of hours and isn't going to get one for another two, take Jonah to preschool, hang out to help him play his violin for show and tell (still with the grumpy baby and an overly helpful wanna be preschooler), home for about 30 minutes to give the tired baby a chance to rest her eyes, wake her up, head back to pick up Jonah, then home again for lunch, naps...

And then it's round 2. Wake up three sleeping kids to pick up Preston and Charley, home to practice, do homework and then back again to the school to pick up Maddy from her field trip, wait a half our for the late buses (while, thankfully, the kids play at a nearby park). And home again for dinner, valentines, bed time....ahhhh, bed time (except that mine didn't come for hours later).

So, I'm just wondering...how do you do it? How do you clean the house, or keep up with laundry, or even talk with your husbands? I'm just positive this all sounds mundane, even commonplace for you supermoms. But, my head is spinning. It is always amazing to me what a little perspective can do for you. It's like having your second child and thinking, what was so hard about just one or like having six for ten days and wondering, why the heck couldn't I get the laundry done with just three. What on earth was I doing with all my time (uh...blogging)?

So here's to perspective and it getting my rear in gear. And don't worry, Bek. I'll keep them safe for you. They'll have eaten loads more Valentine's Day candy than you'd like and may even go without a lunch a day or two but they'll be present and accounted for come Thursday...all six of them and then Josh and I will whisk away to some secluded tropical island for a week. Ha ha, just kidding! We really are all doing great. But you better come home with mom is all I have to say. Can't wait to see you, Mom!!!

Swan Princess

I just couldn't resist. I'm here at the computer, most of the family asleep (amazingly), and Jonah by himself in the other room singing along to Swan Princess.

"I see him smile and then my knees start buckling." And, "She started out as such an ugly duckling, and suddenly she has become a swan...." Of course there are the love songs as well, "Far longer than forever." And "Eternity, eternity, I'll love you for eternity." (or something like that)

He loves this movie and I don't know why but it just makes me smile and laugh. Probably because I know he'd tell you the reason he likes it is because of the "great animal" and the bow and arrows. Every day for the past week at least I'm picking up hangers and pencils (or more recently the dead tulips from outside) off the floor. These are the materials for Jonah's bow and arrows. And toward the end of the movie when Derek is fighting the great animal, Jonah runs for his bow and arrow and gives us all quite a show of being Derek.

And yet, I know he really just likes it for the music. Jonah and I both highly recommend this movie if you haven't yet seen it!

This is before he came up with the clothes hangers and is just using a pen and pencils, but you get the idea.