Laughing at Myself

I need to learn to stop making predictions about myself and my life.  Really, I do!

Yesterday, at the end of my post, I said:

Now I have to get back to my more womanly duties of feeding children and bathing them.  At least I know I have more chance of being successful on those counts, even if it is a bit dull.

Within 2 minutes of posting that, I walked into the kitchen with the intent of making dinner.  I paused for about 5 seconds, surveying the dishes that needed to be done, then looked at my dinner choices, and decided that there was no way I was going to convince myself to do any of it right then and there.

So I ordered in some chinese.  And it was fantastic, by the way.  But still... there I was claiming I have a high chance of success for cooking (although, I suppose maybe it's a good thing I didn't use that exact word?), and I turn around and just order food almost immediately.  At least I washed the dishes while I waited for the delivery!  That's something. 

And the bathing?  Holy cow.  Apparently I've never bathed all three of my children at once, before, without any backup help.  And I think I will avoid doing so ever again.  Because I've never been more soaked during the bathing process than I was last night.  If there had been room for me, it would have been safer just to get in the bath with them, you know? 

As soon as I had put Alex in the bath, he was a CONSTANT ball of moving and spalshing.  I could not take my hands off him for one fraction of a second.  And with Melinda and Jacob both in there, too, things were.... um, interesting.  So I washed Alex as fast as I could, held him for a couple more minutes while he non-stop-splashed for fun, and then took him out and threw a towel on him. And tried to block the opening to the tub so he wouldn't dive right back in.  Now, see, at this point, I would normally hand him off to Jesse.  But I didn't have Jesse.  And I didn't think far enough ahead (bad me!) to think that maybe I should bring in a back-up plan, like a high chair to strap him into.  So then I'm trying to wash Melinda and Jacob while also trying to keep Alex from diving into the water, and we were missing our dumping cup, and Jacob hates putting his head in the water, so it was a fight to get him to lay down for rinsing and everything.  At least Melinda didn't fight me, but she has the most hair and took the longest, all the same.  And then, during the time that I was taking care of the two older kids, Alex peed on the floor.  Yay.  And then in the time it took me to get them both out of the tub and into their own towels, he peed on the rug.  Double yay.  And then we had to dry everyone off.... and still keep Alex out of trouble in the bathroom, which meant sitting one child on the toilet (so he couldn't open it) and guarding the toilet paper, while quickly drying the other off.  Jacob did a spectacularly worse job than Melinda did at guarding the toilet paper.  But at least we didn't have any toilet incidents.  I suppose I was successful in that I did actually bathe them, and they got clean... but it sure didn't feel like a success.

And I was so tired by the end of the night, that I even went to bed early - gasp!! 
And church without Jesse... another big ball o' crazy.  Especially when all 9 of my kids showed up to our Primary class.  At least I had one of the moms in there for an extra pair of hands (which was very needed, since Alex got cranky and had a big ol' runny nose)!  But 9 (loud, wiggly) kids in a small classroom... and that was only one part of the exhautstion.  I'm not afraid to say I went home early.  I'm not quite crazy enough (or maybe devout enough?  I don't know) to sit through a full 1.5 hour "reverent" meeting with those three kids all by myself.  It's hard enough with Jesse there, to keep them quiet and contained.
All you single mothers out there.... I honestly don't know how you do it.  Truly.  I'm so very, very glad that Jesse's on an airplane home right now, and that I'm leaving to pick him up in just a little more than 3 hours from now.  And, also, that the weather forecast has changed for no snow tonight, so I don't have to drive to Virginia with possessed windshield wipers.  That's definitely a blessing!