How to Ruin a Weekend

This weekend sucked! Well, in the end...I guess it turned out okay, but it was touch and go for most of it.

Carolyn and I are in the toughest season of parenthood we have yet faced. Three little ones who all need different things at different times for different reasons. We are physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally spent. Knowing this we begged and pleaded some family for a few hours of wrestling our children so we could sneak away to a nice dinner. We wanted to eat where we could sit and talk without seven trips to the bathroom, without ducking flying pasta, without answering the same question asked a dozen different ways. We wanted to go to a place that didn't serve chicken fingers or have crazy straws or place mats that you color. So we picked the perfect place...

Have you ever gotten a call that you wanted to ignore because you knew what was coming? Well on Friday afternoon, our child care was no more...meaning our night out was no more. We had nothing prepared and were very low on groceries, so we packed the kids up and went out to eat. The kids gave us a little grace, but the evening was far from the romantic refreshing evening out that we had expected.

Saturday we got groceries, a dresser (we've need one for a long time and haven't been able to russle one up at a garage sale or thrift store so we went to Ikea and bought sensible). After half a day of shopping, we went to a family birthday party and endured a lot of jesting about how exhausted we looked, how tough our kids were, how we, "really should think about birth control."

Before either of us lost it, we went home and woke up to a mess on Sunday morning. We spent the entire day cleaning. We're barley within eye shot of finishing. But alas, it is midnight and we're exhausted.

I guess there is nothing to say...I just needed to vent.

It is amazing though; it's after midnight and everyone is asleep except me. I just went around checking beds and I cannot help but think that as tough as life is right now, I wouldn't trade parenthood for anything. I just hope my wife and I can survive it with something left for each other. But, then again, we're one being...so she doesn't have a choice ;))