Friday, March 02, 2007

Night one almost done

So we made it through dinner with four kids. It's so funny because nowadays 4 kids (ages 5-2) is such an oddity. But my mom reminds me that when she was raising us it wasn't such a big deal.
It only took like an hour to pack up the four kids to our dinner destination -- unnamed pizza place.
Yes, I got four kids to the potty, changed a diaper, dumped sand out of four pairs of shoes, got jackets for three (oops, missed one) and got everyone packed in the car in about 50 minutes. Then I spent another 10 minutes searching for my keys that somehow ended up in someone's play purse.
We headed to the pizza place and the kids had strict instructions to be on their best behavior and I must say that they were on their best behavior for their ages. There was a bit of under-the-table shananegans going on in the booth. They got a chance to play some racecar video games in the little arcade area. Boy cousin chowed down 3 pieces of cheese pizza before the other three even made it through half a piece. Husband showed up as the kids were finishing and he quickly ate a few slices. Childrearing is bad for digestion.
Two people stopped me in the pizza place to ask if all four kids were mine. Although I would like to claim that they were (remember, they were behaving fairly well) I admitted that only two were mine. I wouldn't have this smokin' figure if I had given birth to 4!
We headed to Baskin Robbins next store. Boy cousin continued to amaze me by eating his entire kid scoop, while the other three had a few spoonfuls before claiming to be much too full to eat another bit -- well, Amanda actually dropped her cup of ice cream after three bites.
Husband was highly annoyed with the rambunctious behavior so we had some words, but that's all water under the bridge now. I have to try to remember that he was treating whining PT patients all day, while I had had plenty of practice with this raucous brood.
In the ice cream place another man stopped me to ask if all four children belonged to me -- do I look like a baby-machine!!??

Next stop was the video rental store -- love our town because pizza place, ice cream place and video store are all next to each other (and video store isn't a chain but a local mom and pop place where you can also rent adult films). We let the two oldest kids choose the videos for movie night. Got home and I won't go into details, but all went well (we decided to skip a bath and are putting off bathing four children until the morning) and they are all sleeping now.

The best part is my kitchen is as sparkling clean as I left it. I swear, if I did have four children I would probably never cook dinner again. If I could choose one room in my house that has to be immaculate, it is the kitchen. I have been known to scrub down cabinets and floors at midnight so that I can wake up to a beautiful kitchen to cook breakfast. It took us so long to clean up the mess in boy's room, girl's room, bathroom and family room tonight and I can't imagine if I was also facing a sink full of dishes and a floor full of crumbs. Four kids can destroy a house in no time. The cousins arrived at 2 and by 2:15 Lucas' and Amanda's room were destroyed. My family room was a mess with toys, crayons, papers. The easel paper roll was emptied and Amanda had decided to take her spray bottle to "clean" my windows -- this means she sprays the windows with water and holds a towel in her hand, but doesn't actually wipe any of the water away.
House is almost in order again because I'm a freak and it's all set to be destroyed again tomorrow.

Mom has offered to take the whole brood off our hands for a couple of hours tomorrow and Phil and I are trying to figure out what we'll do with ourselves. He has very particular ideas and although they sound appealing, my garden is calling. I'm sure we'll both win in the end.

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