Drama drama drama

Life in a family of six, in which four of the people are under age 10, is full of chaos, noise and unpredictability. Most days, things go pretty well. Then there are the days when mayhem reigns. This morning started out with the promise of a good day: the babes were in a happy mood and we made it to breakfast time without any meltdowns. Then, before DH or I knew what hit us, three of the four littles were crying their heads off and being totally irrational. Fortunately, the 6 year old realized that things were wild and he forewent his usual breakfast foolishness. Eventually, I got the Little Boss (15 months) calmed down by popping him into a baby carrier. The middletons (the 3 and 5 year olds) eventually ate most of their breakfast and skipped merrily off to play. Really, I still have no idea what all the wailing was about. But, whatev.

The rest of the morning went mostly uneventfully: the babes had fun at the babywearing meeting, the toddler went down for his nap without a hitch, everyone ate several servings of lunch and even said “This is so good, I want to have it again next week!”, and then it was time for school, which also went relatively well. Since we’d been cooped up in the house for a few days thanks to the snow and the ridiculously cold weather, we took advantage of the heat wave (18 degrees) and went out again after school time. We decided to hit the mall play area, got beverages at the coffee shop, and I stopped into Teavana and got a few things. I was so impressed with the babes while we were at Teavana. They behaved remarkably well, didn’t break anything and were quite patient during the half hour it took me to decide and purchase. We were all excited to go home and make pancakes for our pancake bar dinner.

While I made the pancakes, the babes got their baths and half of them decided it would be fun to have a screamfest. I should have known that the screamfest was only the beginning. Long story short . . . .the 3yo managed to slice his finger on the brand new and VERY sharp vegetable peeler. It sliced through his nail, and into the nail bed about a quarter of an inch. I don’t even really remember how we did it, but DH and I got his finger out and then I applied immediate pressure. DH took over while I finished up dinner. I realized it was pretty serious when after 10 minutes, it was still bleeding like crazy. It finally stopped after about 45 minutes of constant pressure. It also helped when the 3yo put his hand on his head. I took him to convenient care, just to be on the safe side. He’ll be fine, but, the little escapade threw a monkey wrench into our bedtime routine.

But wait, there’s more. After we’d returned from the clinic, I was walking through the kitchen and caught a glint under the griddle. I thought it was the flame and thought, “Great! I left the burner on!” I bent down to have a closer look, then inhaled sharply and jumped back. DH says, “Uh-oh, what happened?” I replied in a very dramatic whisper, “THERE’S A MOUSE ON THE STOVETOP!” The fact that there was a mouse running around on the stovetop was bad enough. (GROSS!) It was made worse by the fact that we’d already had a rather traumatic experience last week catching another mouse!

So now we were left trying to figure out how to catch this mouse, trying to wrangle four very tired children into bed, and I was trying to not pass out from the stress of the day and lack of dinner! Amazingly, we got the little humans in bed with no crying and everyone was calm within half an hour. Based on how our day began and ended, I would have thought that feat should have taken us at least an hour, or more.

Ooof! Drama! Drama! Drama!

Oh well, at least I didn’t have to think about breast cancer at all today . . . that’s a plus, right?