You've been Elled

In the summer, I love to sleep late. That's one of the perks of being a teacher. Andrew, on the other hand, physically cannot sleep late. He wakes up around 4:00 or 4:30 and feeds BC before he goes to his running club. Then he comes back home, eats breakfast and gets ready for work. Through all of this I am snoring. Addie usually wakes me up around 7:30 and is ready for her 4 course breakfast. Just kidding- eggs, fruit, and cereal is about the extent of it. If I'm lucky I can buy some more snooze time with a "K bar" aka a Special K bar.

But this morning Addie was not home so Andrew and I sat at a table together and ate breakfast. It was quiet and we only cleaned up our two cereal bowls. I'm not sure that we even talked. It was glorious.

Apparently our house doesn't run well when Addie is away. I fuss at her daily for "parenting" Elle. Elle gets herself into a lot of sticky situations. For instance, all of the bathroom doors must stay closed at all times. She may have only been out of sight for 30 seconds but she will enter the room drenched from head to toe in toilet water yelling "Uh oh." That habit is really gross.

Another Elle rule is always keep the dishwasher closed. I like to crack it open a little bit after I run a cycle to let them air dry a little bit but if Elle is awake, this cannot happen. She will find a sharp utensil and run around with it...

A very important rule and one that I forgot to abide by today is to always keep the lock on the snack cabinet. She's sneaky and quiet and will strike right when I am changing BC's diaper or doing something with Addie. After breakfast I must have forgotten to put the latch back on. Big mistake. I had just gotten off the phone (with Elle beside me) and I ran into the other room to put Bentley Claire's paci back in. For the TWO SECONDS that it took me to do that I hear a huge crash followed by a cry. Naturally I run into the kitchen to find Elle frozen and screaming with pickles and glass everywhere. Who buys a giant jar of pickles anyway?! She had three little cuts on her foot that were bleeding so I threw her in the high chair, ran to grab peroxide and bandaids and left the pickle juice flowing like a river down the hallway towards the garage. During this whole comedic event Bentley Claire was screaming crying because it was time for her to eat. I got everyone calmed down and stable so I could clean up. It was quite the debacle.

While I was on the floor cleaning up pickles and glass I could not help but laugh out loud at God's sense of humor. When Andrew and I have had conversations about how many kids we want to have, my response has always been 3 or 4. Here is my reasoning. I want a house where something is always going on. I like the action and the chaos that large families come with. I had that growing up and I want that for our family. God has certainly given us that! Andrew looked at me the other day while all three kids were going nuts and asked if this was crazy enough. I would say it's just the perfect amount of chaos.

And this my friends, is why I still work.