As is often the case, my lack of organization caught up with me tonight. In addition to writing this fabulous blog, attempting to parent four unruly children, and take care of that stupid dog I also do a significant amount of volunteering. I totally do it for the wrong reasons. One of the things I’ve learned as an Army wife is that if you volunteer for stuff, you make friends. I like having friends, so I volunteer. It’s just a bonus that some good comes out of it.
Among other positions, I am currently the co-welfare chair for our spouses’ club. The club raises money that we then give away in the form of scholarships and welfare disbursements. This is the time of year that we must gather a committee and weed through the requests to see who we can/should give the cash to.
Seems easy enough right?
At least a month ago the other co-chair, Carrie, and I set tonight as the date for our big meeting. It would be at her house, since I have four monsters and she only has two. She’d make a dinner and I would make salad and dessert. Easy-peasy. Well, it would have been if I had bothered to look at a calendar before agreeing to the date.
Because of course this week I have two extra kids living with us. And this week my husband is away.
No problem, I can leave the twinkies with the big kids like always. The girls who are with us are totally awesome, no worries at all. Except tonight the big kids’ activities did not end until 6 PM.
Guess what time our meeting started? 6PM. Guess how long it takes to get from my house to the Carrie’s house? 30 minutes. Oops.
My only real option was to load up the boys and all my other stuff and take them to the meeting.
I know, it’s a bad idea. A really bad idea.
We did ok for the first hour. The boys were in the playroom downstairs watching tv and playing video games. Or so I thought. I went to check on them and caught Jackson in the bathroom upstairs. Squatting on the toilet. Yes, squatting with both feet on the seat trying to squeeze out a poo. Who poops like that? Ugh, at least I caught him before he left that mess for the other guests to find.
After that, at least one of the twinkies came upstairs every 20 seconds.
“Mommy…I love you.”
“Mommy…I’m thirsty.” (They each had a full bottle of water downstairs with them)
“Mommy…is it time for cake?”
“Mommy…Reese/Jackson is not sharing.”
“Mommy…is it time to go home?”
“Mommy…come see my picture.”
“Mommy…mommy…mom…mom…”
Every time they came up I could feel my neck get red. They started running up the stairs and around the living room like crazy people. I stopped that pretty quickly. But not before I almost started to cry.
There was one moment of hope. Reese took his Leapster and sat in a chair in the upstairs living room for about 20 minutes. Perfectly quiet. All the women at the meeting said how sweet he was, I admitted that I loved him the most.
Spend a week with two sets of twins before you judge me on that.
Even though they had batted eyes enough at the committee to convince them that they were angels, once we drifted into the third hour I knew I did not have much time left before a full blown meltdown. Kids are tricky that way.
We managed to get the meeting finished, but I did not leave until after 9 PM.
9PM, AND NOT ONE GLASS OF WINE.
The twinkies are now tucked in their beds, sound asleep. They have cake smeared on their faces, marker on their hands, and unbrushed teeth.
But we all survived, so that has to count for something.
