From 0 kids to 4... Overnight

Some of you may not know this, but after all my roommates moved away the Mitchell family offered to take me in and let me live in their guest bedroom until I finished school. Carey and Spencer are this wonderful couple who were my “adopted parents” from my church. They have always been wonderful about having me over and feeding me throughout college (not such an easy task when you have as many allergies as I do). Anyway, they allowed me to move into their house, and take over their guest bed/bathroom. Not only that, but they decided they wanted to bless me and not charge me any rent or living costs (despite the fact that they feed me at least 5 meals a week). Needless to say, they are WONDERFUL and I have been so extremely blessed to live with them.

Oh but it gets even better. They have four children. Yep. Four.

Let me give you the break down...

Ellie- 9 years old, in 4th grade and lives mostly in her own dream world. Mind you, this girl is totally brilliant, top of her class in both math and reading... yet about 75% of her time is spent in her head... life’s just more interesting there...

Clark- 5 years old, in Kindergarden and the policeman of the house. Clark loves rules and will make sure that everyone of his siblings are abiding by them. He is always on top of the schedule of what needs to get done. Don’t you be caught doing something you’re not supposed to when Clark’s around...

Wyatt- 3 years old, one of the twins. While all of his siblings have dark brown eyes, Wyatt has big blue ones. Wyatt is by far the most emotional one of the family... he quickly goes from screams of joy and laughter, to tears of utter anguish, back to laughter all in the span of 30 seconds... Wyatt has also always been the messy one of the two. Ever since he was little, anything that he ate ended up everywhere... for a while any sort of sauce that was for a meal (ex: spaghetti sauce) ended up all smeared into is curly hair and all over his face and even eyes...

Owen- 3 years old, the second twin. Owen is definitely the steady one of the twins. While his brother experiences the highest highs and lowest lows Owen watches with amusement, plotting along his own course, not easily thrown off the deep end of emotional chaos. Owen will finish the job, whereas Wyatt will try for a few minutes and go on to find bigger and better things to do. Owen and I have always had a very special relationship from the time he was very small. He’s my faithful Owie and I’m his “Ressa.”

Going from living with college roommates to four children has been quite a trip. Most of the time I just sit back and laugh at the chaos around me....

Now that you have a pretext for each of the kids and their personalities I thought you might enjoy a few stories...

Dinner time... Now as unrealistic as the stereotypical scene from a romantic movie is where the boy asks the girl to dance in the rain on some park bridge, is about as unrealistic as the movie representation of what a “family dinner” looks like. In the movies the children are clean and dressed cute. The table is fully set. Each person takes turn talking and laughter ensuing when the youngest says something cute...

Reality check.

By the time dinner is ready, and everybody sits down to eat, blood sugars are running low... a little too low if you know what I mean... Here is a typical scene from dinner time.

-Prayer- (the quiet before the storm)
-Clark “Mom how many bites do I have to eat?”
-Wyatt “ketchup!”
-Clark “What about 10 small bites”
-Ellie “what if there is aliens living on the moon?”
-Wyatt “KETCHUP!!!”
-Owen “Cut up please”
-Clark “Okay, 15 small bites?”
-Wyatt “MORE SAUCE MORE SAUCE”
-Owen “Look Ressa, Owen eat all green beans!”
-Ellie “If I eat everything can I have some I-C-E-C-R-E-A-M?” (mind you she learned early on that she couldn’t say the world “ice cream” because the twins would freak out and want some too)
-Clark “Oh! Can I have some I-C-A-E-A-M-E too please?!” (Clark knows he is asking for ice cream, but just can’t get the hang of spelling the words out yet...)
-Wyatt “HELP HELP... MORE KETCHUP”
-Clark “But I don’t like this!!! I don’t want to eat 15 small bites”
-Owen “ALL DONE... Owen messy... owen wash hands?”
-Wyatt “MOOORE MORE!!!!”

Now during this Carey and Spencer dutifully try to answer everyone’s questions, get more of what everybody needs... meanwhile trying to eat their own dinners and stay calm...

.............

I have to say today was especially humous. I was watching the twins for a few hours while Carey was at work. The weather was perfect and thus it was decided that we would venture out of the house and have a picnic at the park.


For the first 30 minutes it was movie perfect... The boys ran around squealing and laughing... they even managed to eat their picnic lunch setting their sandwiches down on the nasty picnic table only twice with me freaking out and telling them to put them back on the paper towel... after lunch they went back to playing, cue cuteness and lots of running around...

5 minutes later Wyatt comes to me, “I have to go potty.” Owen also chimed it “me too!”

Uh oh. I thought... public bathrooms and two three years olds who are just learning how to the “put the pee-pee in the potty”...This is not going to be good.

They follow me into the large handicap stall and I tell them not to touch ANYTHING. Wyatt is first and I cover the entire toilet with toilet paper, rolling up his long sleeves (much to his dismay) to try and prevent them from touching the seat.... He manages to go alright and I scoop him up to wash his hands. Afterwards I put his hands under the automatic dryer... however it isn’t one of the wimpy ones, its one of the super-powerful dryers that sounds like a jet engine.... Of course it scares the poor little guy half to death and instantly ensues screaming and crying... it only took a few seconds to calm him down... although I think he was a bit traumatized because for the remainder of time while we were in the bathroom he kept telling me “No fan Ressa... no loud fan...” every 30 seconds... just in case I had forgotten...

Owen’s turn.

Once again I used a half roll of TP to cover the toilet. Success. Not too many germs, and two pairs of dry pants. Score! I foolishly thought I was in the clear...

We returned to the joy of the playground for another glorious 15 minutes... all of the sudden I heard the dreaded words from Wyatt... “Ressa! I wet!!! I WET!”

Sure enough... apparently, he hadn’t let all the pee-pee out... and in the excitement of returning to all the slides and swings he hadn’t realized that he needed to go potty again... perhaps this was my fault though... maybe I scared him so badly with the automatic hand dryer that he chose to wet himself rather than face the scary loud monster fan...

Something I have learned about being around kids so much. All joy can turn to utter distress and chaos within one second. Just one second is all it takes for all manner of organization to fall apart and for one or all of the children to lose it.

We headed back to the van Wyatt repeating the whole way “I wet... I wet...” Owen, on the other hand, repeating “No, I no go home... I slide... no Ressa! No go home!” I turned to Owen and said, “Owen, Wyatt’s pants are wet buddy... we have to see if we have more pants in the van. If there aren’t any pants in the car we have to go home because Wyatt can’t play in the park naked can he?” He looked at me and simply said, “No naked...”

Upon getting to the van I realized to my luck that there was one solitary diaper that would suffice for the remainder of the trip home. As I went to take off Wyatt’s wet pants and underwear he all of the sudden decided it would be a good time to pee again. Of course my own screaming ensued “No Wyatt! Don’t pee!! Stop peeing!!” as I tried to catch it all with my one dry diaper... But the poor little 3 year old didn’t quite have the capability to stop on command.... I quickly decided that him standing in the van was not the best option. Instantly I set him down in the dirt and told him to let all the pee-pee out. It lasted for about 5 seconds until Wyatt realized that the pee was trickling down his leg, making a puddle at his feet, “No Mud!!! NO MUD!! NOOO MUDDDDD!!!” What was I going to do? Suddenly it hit me. I sat the boy down on the edge of the van and used an empty Starbucks cup as make-shift urinal. Wyatt in utter distress cried “No Pee-pee in cup!! No pee-pee in cup... I pee-pee in potty!” I looked at him... “Wyatt, there is no potty... you just need to pee-pee in the cup, okay?”

Sure enough, much to his breaking heart... he managed to do it...

Now what? I had no dry clothes. The one diaper I had was now wet from trying to catch the pee rather than letting it soak into the van carpet... I guess he’s just going to have to ride home naked. Poor kid.

While he was quite upset about it, I explained to him that there was no clothes for him to wear, he looked up at me with his big blue eyes, and in his broken-hearted manner said “Oohhkay....”

............

In the end I know that no matter of pee, poop or snotty noses could ever make me love these kids any less. I love turning the key in the door and coming home to screams all over the house “RESSA HOME!!! RESSA!!!!” I love the hugs and kisses I get before bed, or I leave to go anywhere... I love them.

How lucky am I to be apart of their lives?