Constant Chaos

I'm about to go outside and beat up the trash man! Why must he always come right during nap time? Seriously?! Do you know how much I need this nap time?! This time of complete silence (well, besides the washing machine...and the dishwasher...and the dryer), is the key to my sanity. I get a break from the baby's screaming, and from the toddlers fighting, and from the constant requests, "Moooooom, I'm done going poop," "Moooooom, Maia's hitting me," "Moooom, can I have something to eat?" "Mooooom, what time is it?" "Moooom, can you get me water with ice in it?"

These three munchkins are quite demanding and today I decided that I wanted to torture myself by taking all three of them to Trader Joe's. I knew I should have turned around and gone home as soon as I tried to fit Malakai's big ol' car seat in their itty bitty shopping carts. Why do they have such tiny carts anyways? Do they want to discourage mom's from bringing their screaming infants into their store. A nice gentleman saw me struggling to try to fit this humongous car seat into the abnormally tiny cart and asked if I needed help. I wiped the sweat from my brow, barked at my other two kids to "come back here so you don't get smashed by a car" and sweetly said, "No thanks, I got it." He didn't look convinced, but decided he better leave before I barked at him too.

By the time we made it into the store, Malakai had woken up from the earthquake I had created trying to get the car seat situated. So there I was with a screaming baby, and two tornados who had run off to find the "stuffy cow" so they could get a treat. For a split second I considered abandoning the cart and my tornados and running out to my truck and going home...but only for a split second.

I got all my groceries and as I was checking out I realized that my voice was hoarse from yelling at the kids to stay where I could see them, my ears were ringing from the screaming baby, and all the people in the store were glaring at me wishing I'd just leave already....oh and did I mention that I had barely been spared a disastrous incident of a cart tipping over onto a toddler with the baby in the cart...yeah...it makes me want to throw up just thinking about what almost happened.

I thought I'd continue the torture by trying to "quickly" run into two other stores. I should know by now, that I need to erase the word "quick" from my vocabulary. Nothing is "quick" when it involves 3 kids ages 4 and under.

This hour and a half errand run felt like 6 hours and by the time I got home I was very much looking forward to nap time, but of course I had to make lunches, feed the baby, wipe butts (because everyone has to poop all at the same time), and beg the kids to eat a million times before that much coveted time could be realized.

So now that they are asleep, and I have my much coveted moments of silence, the trash man decides to rain on my silent parade with his loud beeping truck right under my kids' window. Please, God, please let them stay asleep...