What Almost Every Mother Knows

by Fatherofeight | More from this Blogger

05 Mar 2007 11:00 AM

If there was room for it, the complete title for this blog would be "What Almost Every Mother Knows, But Keeps to Herself". Yesterday, Nancy took our three oldest adopted children to visit our daughter and her husband for the night. They had planned activities for this morning. She left me at home with our four year old and 30 month old boys.

Ok, I will admit it. Nancy is much better at taking care of children than I am. It does take both of us at home to raise them given the number and their special needs. When we were raising our grown children, she did the child things and I did daily "hand to hand combat" in the corporate world. I am still much better at doing the manual labor and letting her be the child care expert. She just seems to know how to do it.

Like most couples who have been married a while, we have a division of labor. For instance, Nancy does the laundry, dresses children, and breakfast. I do most of the dishes, trash collection and disposal, most appointments that involve taking a child somewhere, and putting the troops to bed. She can take care of all five boys for most of a day, I can't.

This morning, I knew that she was not going to be back until after lunch. I finally had to throw in the towel and take them somewhere because they would always be in either a child car seat or the stroller. I left this note in case she got home first:

"Nancy, I am very sorry for the way the house looks. The mess in the bathroom is from last night. Believe it or not, I spent a lot of time cleaning today, but while I was cleaning, they were always somewhere else messing something up. I threw in the towel when Isaiah went out the backdoor while I was trying to fix our bed which Caleb wet (your side) last night. I ran out the back and the first thing I heard was Isaiah telling me from somewhere that he was stuck. In the short time that I was working on the bed, he had gone outside in just a diaper and tried to climb a bush in the front yard. We will be doing "guy things" until you get back."

I don't know why I didn't appreciate all the things that she does with our children more when we were young. Now that I am home all the time, I appreciate it a lot!

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PATTI (580) 05 Mar 2007 11:45 AM

Dear Ed, I really had to laugh out loud at your predicament. Thank you Lord for showing us the way. PATTI

Fatherofeight (2475) 05 Mar 2007 11:55 AM

Thanks, Patti, it wasn't very funny at the time, of course, it is now.

melodyes_song (80) 05 Mar 2007 03:24 PM

Ed thanks for the laugh...my dh who is staying at home with our boys while I am tackling the corporate world is doing an awesome job but he has incidences like this throughout the day and I try really hard not to laugh...he also calls me and says we are going to do guy things....

Fatherofeight (2475) 05 Mar 2007 04:32 PM

I just finally had to admit that she is better at it than I am, the two little boys had fun though, we went to the tractor supply place and looked at guy things. Thanks for the note Melody.

rsbg (501) 05 Mar 2007 07:44 PM

Ed, I needed that laugh today! And I promise I am laughing WITH you NOT AT you! :0) I am sure you do a fine job, better than you give yourself credit for. Your wife is a saint, I couldn't handle 5 kids by myself!

Fatherofeight (2475) 05 Mar 2007 09:50 PM

I am laughing at myself NOW, wasn't all that funny then, but we did have a good time. Thanks, rsbg

AKAMyAlias (242) 05 Mar 2007 11:22 PM

Mighty funny -- especially that it was HER side of the bed ;-)

momofeigth (38) 06 Mar 2007 07:18 AM

Thanks loads AKAMyAlias! lol, I had to the change the sheets when I got home! He is better with them than he wants to admit.

Fatherofeight (2475) 06 Mar 2007 07:32 AM

I did try to clean it up, but that was when Isaiah escaped, chasing boys is keeping me young, and I do love my life. Thanks AKA.

Nancy, at least I warned you about it, I could have just "covered up" the evidence.