Something's in the Water

August 12, 2016

These three! I'm just so proud of them today! Last night at Costco, a woman stopped me to tell me how impressed she was with how well-behaved my children are. I kind of laughed as I thanked her because I so often feel like we are controlled chaos personified (sometimes really not controlled at all), but I looked back at my kiddos all sitting at a table with Jeff eating their hot dogs and realized even though the past 15 minutes had included lots of messy fingers (and a lap) to be wiped clean, hot dogs to be cut up, and a bit of a blowout from the baby, who was still getting over a little bug, everyone HAD been very well-behaved! And I appreciated that kind woman for pointing that out to me and reminding me to appreciate these (mostly) sweet, good-hearted little munchkins.

Later on, I told Jeff what the woman had said. He laughed too.

Today, we biked over to one of the pools in our neighborhood and I had to take two trips to get all of our pool toys, snacks, water bottles, etc. from the bike trailers into the gated pool area. One of the lifeguards was very sweet and held the gate open and offered to help, but the kids' feet were burning on the hot sidewalk the second they stepped foot on the ground, so, with my arms full and McKenna still in the trailer, I told them to hurry into the pool area, but wait for me by the chairs - no one get in the water! I knew the lifeguard was aware of them and my little policeman, Luke, would keep the twins out of the water, but I didn't want him to have to try, so grabbed the baby and an armful of stuff and hurried in after them, not sure what I would find.

To my great relief, all three kids were sitting calmly and patiently on a lounge chair waiting for me and they continued to wait while I grabbed the second round of items from the bike trailers. Then, they patiently took turns being sun-screened before they got in the pool. The next 2 1/2 hours followed the same pattern: listening the first time I asked them to do something, sharing without fights, getting along with other kids at the pool, asking politely for things, and just generally being pleasant and wonderful! When we left, I told the two women I had been chatting with, "It was really nice meeting you" and Blake, my little parrot, yelled to them and their kids, "It was really nice meeting you" as he got out of the pool.

I was amazed! It helped that this was the first day all week that McKenna has been in a good mood all day, now that she is finally over the bug she caught, so I had more time and patience for her older siblings. Even still, these kids of mine are fantastic, but they're kids, and they are well-versed in fighting with each other, whining, and getting into things they know they're not supposed to, so whatever has caused this wave of extreme pleasantness, I hope we'll be riding it a long, long time!