Yikes

It's time for this blog to get back to its roots, i.e. displaying my inadequate parenting (for early examples check here and here). It's also time to issue a warning. There is a group of people out in the world that is spreading a pernicious lie. They walk around saying something like, "Three kids is really hard. But after three, adding more is no big deal!" I know they exist because about 20 of them came up and told me that after Sadie was born. I'm here to tell you that these people are lying liars. Plug your ears and run away when they try to tell you that. Don't believe me? Well, here's some photographic proof on how exactly how false that statement is. Or at least how false it is for me. I'm struggling these days between caring for a newborn and preventing the other three from destroying our house and themselves:


Exhibit A.


I refer to this as the Sugar Incident. I was nursing Tessa in the other room when this occurred. For the record, these kids had been served breakfast. But I guess they needed a little post-breakfast nosh. They took it upon themselves to prepare it. The results? A sugar snowstorm in my living room. It was EVERYWHERE.


Mmm, the breakfast of champions. A half cup of sugar with a few Cheerios sprinkled on the top. I never knew how hard sugar was to clean up before this day.

Exhibit B.


Another super fun/gritty material I had to clean up this weekend was sand. We have a little sandbox in the backyard. A lady in our ward gave us her old water table recently. I thought we had created the perfect little haven in the backyard for the girls to enjoy while I take care of things inside (read: feed the baby--she's terribly hungry all the time--and do laundry). They did enjoy it. They developed a fun little game where you dump water on your sister's head followed by a bucket of sand.


This particular "game" required a 45 minute shower/bath combo for the two younger big girls with me desperately trying to wash all the sand out of their hair. (Funny how Chloe didn't have a bit in HER hair--I wonder who invented the game?) Even still, they had a beach's worth of sand still caught between strands. Does anyone have a good tip on sand removal from hair? The bathroom was a wreck and took ages to clean. It will take me most of today to vacuum up what was deposited in the house. Carter has officially banned sand from within 50 yards of our house (I hope our neighbors will comply!). And all this happened just as our dinner guests arrived. Lovely.

* * * * *

I may be terrible at preventing these incidents, but I'm glad I always have the presence of mind to take pictures. You know, for insurance purposes. I can also see how they might be kind of amusing (although I imagine it will be a couple of years before the comic effect works on me). Also, I want to have them in case I ever wax too nostalgic once my girls are grown and spilling sugar all over their own homes.

So, for those of you contemplating a fourth child, you have officially been warned that it IS a big deal. And I officially need a weekend from my weekend.