Almost There...

I'm still here, and still alive (and well!) It's been a long two weeks, but the kids have continued to behave beautifully (OK, I'll admit there have been a few brief interludes of difficult behavior, but nothing to complain about) so it hasn't been as hard as I was expecting. Of course, the following day after I posted my last post our daughter decided it would be fun to throw a fit in the bookstore after I wouldn't allow her to take the book she had in the car (which came FROM that bookstore) in with us, for the obvious (to me at least) reason that it would look like we were stealing the book when we left with it. For the first time that I can remember, I got looks that said "I'm so glad I'm not that woman with the screaming little girl and another baby on the way." Or maybe they were saying, "Lady, if you can't even control your little girl, what business to do have giving birth to yet ANOTHER little brat?" Whatever...it only lasted a few minutes and eventually she calmed down enough to be presentable in public.

And then there was the bright idea I had of having some of my neighbor friends over for a pizza dinner. It started out innocently enough- their husbands were out of town, too, and gee, while I'm at it why don't I invite a few other neighbors and their kids over too? So we ended up with five adults and TEN children, six of whom were "older" (2-4 years old) boys with enough energy to tear our basement to pieces. Two of them are the sons of my friend and neighbor who I personally really like but am amazed at the difficulty she finds in controlling her kids, especially the older one. I swear- I really do adore this woman and think she is an intelligent person who I can relate to-- I consider her a good friend...but I just don't get her parenting philosophy. When her older son acts out (and I mean really acts out- not the typical 4-year old tantrum) she says,"wow- what am I going to do when he's 14 years old and yelling 'f-you' at me?!" Umm, am I the only one who sees something totally backwards with that statement? I am really the last one to judge others on their parenting decisions- everyone has to do what works best for them- but sometimes I find it hard to see the logic behind certain approaches.

Anyway, needless to say that one night beat me to a pulp and even though my friends were all extremely helpful (most stayed to help clean up and offered to do anything necessary to help me out a bit-- more than I can say for my own family sometimes!), I was already feeling run down that day and the dinner experience just did me in. Lesson learned. What I was thinking when I decided to have everyone over after an already tough (physically draining) day, I'll never know.

So, you see, it's not all roses and smiles, but again, I have little to complain about. I love spending the time with the kids and we've done a lot of really fun activities we probably wouldn't have done if I wasn't on my own with them all day- dinner with friends, extra play dates, etc. I'm kind of going to miss this time after the new baby comes. Which for those of you keeping track is just two weeks from today. When I have more energy and more time (hubby gets home tomorrow night and no more plans to travel in the immediate future!!!) I'll get into how I'm feeling now that we're SO close. For now, it's off to bed...