Parenting is such a roller coaster isn’t it? One minute you have tears in your eyes because you love your children SO MUCH. And the next you have tears because it’s so hard. They don’t tell you how hard it is. You hear stories from friends of course. And if you’re like me you probably thought yo yourself naively “oh my kids would never do that!”
Lies. Whatever I imagined my kids not doing- they’ve done 10 times over. I assure you.
I love sharing stories about the fun things I do with my ladybugs. I love spreading joy! But I’m also honest to a fault. And I have news. It’s not always joyful. It’s HARD. We’ve had more hard days than not recently. So in an effort to remain transparent as I always do I’ll share what kinds of things happened in our house this week….
For starters out sweet Lavender turned ONE! This was also the big girls’ 1st week back to school after a full year + homeschooling! We celebrated the weekend and the birthday girl with a lawn picnic and mini cupcakes. It was sweet. Everyone was darling. It was what I would imagine having a gaggle or little girls would look like. But then it went south. Pearl took the tray of cupcakes into the house and smashed chocolate frosting into the carpets. 🥴That’s when we discovered that she also took a tube of toothpaste and smeared it all over the laptop keyboard. And the walls. And the AC unit. Disaster. These are the things I refer to as fireballs. It’s like a game of dodgeball where they throw fire at you that you have to put out as quickly as they one.
The thing is- we’ve been having some challenges with Pearl recently. Big big emotions. Lots of drama. We’ve spoken to about 6 specialists. And I’ve been reading self help books at night. It’s been so difficult. So she’s been getting most of my attention these days.
Saturday morning we started with early risers and lots of tears. In an act of anger Pearl went to Lorelei’s room and sprinkled my Younique makeup all over her room. And then preceded to throw a half dozen eggs on my hardwood floor. And then dump a cup of water on it. Eggs. On. My. Floor. Fireball. Holy smokes. I was so mad. We stopped our plans we had and cleaned the kitchen. Mopping and scrubbing.
Shortly after the girls were playing in the pool outside and I gave them popsicles. We do a thing here- when the girls are playing outside in the summer I blast ice cream truck music on our back yard speakers and come out like an ice cream truck and deliver popsicles. Popsicles are allowed on the deck. Definitely not the carpeted living room. But naturally Pearl strolled through covered in fudgesicle. I told her to take it back outside. She retaliated by throwing the popsicle at me and calling me a turd. (It of course landed on the carpet)
My mood crashed. These fireballs literally suck my energy dry. I’ve struggled with anxiety forever. But occasionally depression creeps in. This was the day it crept in. I canceled all plans for the day. Thankfully Ron was home. I was numb from all the crying and yelling and angst. I went back to bed for 40 mins and reset.
Sunday morning I had my usual line up of all the meal pre to do. And laundry. And prep for the school week. And kids. And all of Ron’s chores he had. Busy day ahead. I was twirling around the kitchen trying to make egg sandwiches for 6.5 people and start meal prep. When all of a sudden my baking dish caught the corner of my Pyrex measuring cups. My 4 cup measuring cup shattered to the ground. The glass. Went. Every where. It went up. It went to the living room. Fireball. Lavender was in her high chair waiting for her breakfast. The others were in the pool. My foot was bleeding from glass cuts. My hand was bleeding from the glass. What an epic disaster. It took me nearly an hour to clean this glass. I locked the girls outside. Naturally this was the worst part of their week. Obviously. 🙄
So back to Pearl. She needs lots of sensory experiences. And to be involved as much as possible. I knew I had a lot of cooking ahead of me. So I set her up with some projects. First she cracked a dozen eggs for me. She did so good. She was so proud!
Her next special project was finger painting with rainbow whipped cream. I filled a paper plate with whipped cream and drops of food coloring. I gave her a bunch of paper and let her explore with her hands and make hand prints. And let’s be honest: she made body paint.
Ok so now that she was covered in rainbow whipped cream we had phase two of this project. Water table to the rescue!!! I filled the table with water. Duh. Then I filled a bottle with dish soap and water and shook it up hard to make soapy foam. She enjoyed having the foamy bubbles poured in. She mixed it all up with her hands and arms.
Somehow we made it through another busy weekend. Fireballs and all. I took the ladybug crew to the playground before dinner to burn off the last of their energy.
We all returned for home made Indian food in the crockpot that not one of my children ate 🤣 Ron and I ended the night with the new Wonder Woman movie and Trader Joe’s popcorn tasting. The laundry got waitlisted for Monday. Sometimes we just have to call it a day and put our feet up!
Ladybug Mama, a peek at life with 5 girls… 