It's late on a Monday, and my husband is working late (rather unexpectedly), leaving me home alone with the kids. Neither of whom are cooperating; my son is chunking toys at his sister's head, and my daughter is unhappy that I won't let her play with a plastic bag. I've got a 7 am meeting tomorrow that I'm presenting at, I need to prepare, and yet, I just can't bring myself to do it after wrangling these kids this evening.
Over the weekend, we made our first trip as a family: we drove to Houston to visit a friend of mine from the first time around in college. She has three children of her own, so we let the kids have the run of the house, along with some other families that were over, and it was relaxing. I can't believe a trip with my kids can be termed "relaxing", but so be it. We had a good time – everyone slept when they were supposed to sleep, played when they were supposed to play, and ate when they were directed to. We returned feeling happy and grateful that this is a possiblity in our lives; we can leave the city and not end up hating life by the time we return.
So right now, sitting here typing this, is a hard return to reality. Bryan did not nap at all at school today, so we're dealing with an overly tired preschooler and an almost-toddler (yay for standing up all by yourself!) who is constantly frustrated by her brother, who yanks toys out of her hand, tries to pull her away from things that she's interested in, and basically tries his best to boss her around as much as he can. But this is the day to day stuff that you push through, that you deal with, in order to have the fun times. This is normal, even if it is hard to handle when I'm still tired from the traveling and from a day of work myself. This is the true test of being Mom.
