Baptism by Fire-Welcome to Chaos

It's been a couple of long weeks.

Obviously.

One thing after another, projects taking longer than anticipated, new projects thrown in the mix, too many sickies day after day....you name it, it's gone on.

I'm sure there will be a slew of catching up things going on in the next few days. Some big things have happened (like Alaina's baptism!) in the past two weeks. I just need more than 90 seconds to sit. My allotted sit time doesn't seem to last longer than that lately. And that makes Twitter fun, right? Or a good vent, or however you want to categorize it.

Anyway.

This week we've had a couple of house guests. in the form of two cute little kids from down the street. Our friends have spent the week in Aruba (can we say jealous?), and we have had the pleasure of tending their kids for a few days. Cute kids. Sweet kids. Not used to the chaos kids.

*sigh*

It's quite a change to go from a quiet, calm house with two kids (age 9 and 3), to a constantly noisy, constantly moving, constantly something somewhere (or some days everything everywhere) house with 7 kids. And two dogs.

I'm hope we haven't scared their 9yr old daughter so much that she will never want to come back.

Tonight she asked "is having 7 kids hard?" I told her that sometimes it's hard, but it's always messy, it's always loud, and always fun. She said, "yah, it's definitely loud!"

The best was when she looked at me the other night as we were in the middle of the bedtime round up and asked, "so....you want more kids?"

hahaha! She asked it at the perfect time too-it was right out of a sitcom. Cute kid. I hope we haven't scared her out of having a family of her own one day.

She's been wonderful with Charlotte, helpful around the house, and even cleaned up part of my girls' bedroom the other day while they were at Knowledge Bowl practice after school. She has appropriately sheltered and mothered her little brother, just like any good older sister would. I just feel bad that this hasn't been more of a vacation for her. (but it's ice cream and movie night tonight-hopefully that will help!) She's so polite that she would never say it, but I think that the whole get everybody up and going and out the door in the morning thing here scares the bejeebies out of her. Inevitably something collapses for someone 5 minutes before walking out the door, then I tell them to let it go, kiss them on the forehead and shoo them out the door anyway while I wave like an idiot yelling, "Be happy! Have fun storming the castle!" as they slump down the sidewalk with a frump on their face. Kind of a rude awakening if you're not used to that every day.

But hey, at least she will be likely to give her parents the welcome home of their life, right?

So what about the 3yr old? Meh-he fits right in with the other little boys. He's wild, he holds his own. It's almost like having another Lincoln around. Watching the two of them interact has been nothing short of seriously entertaining. He seems to be having a great time! No tears (I worried about bedtime), no panics or freak outs....he's just gone with the flow. And he hasn't hesitated to jump right in the fray, or climb right in my lap for a story. Aside from a couple of run-ins with Charlotte (But she's ok! Thankfully she's tough, she's used to older brothers), he's just assimilated himself into the norm. In fact, he just climbed up and sat on the desk right next to me here, while he drives his car on my arm and yells at the dog to go away.

Yep, fits right in.

Moral of this story? I don't know. Maybe if you only have a kid or two (or even three or four) and they aren't appreciating you and your home, send them here for a few days. They'll come home loving you a lot.

Now I must return to the chaos. And some dancing in the kitchen.

It's loud.

It's messy.

But it's fun.

And it's all mine.