I'm Sure Every Mom Has Thought This Exact Same Thing

Thursday was one of those days. Have I mentioned we started potty training? It was one of those days that usually makes me want to speed time up a bit. Get these kids a little more independent, you know what I mean?

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At naptime it all came to a head. I was soothing Lieren in the rocking chair and was about to lay her in bed while Sim rolled around on the floor and Silas played quietly next to him. Nine out of ten days Silas excellently goes along with the routine: "Babies are going down for nap so we just play with quiet toys right now, sweets." But for some reason quiet toys weren't enough so he reached over and pulled out Sim's paci. Sim was on the brink of a meltdown anyway and that was the last straw. He let out a shriek that I'm sure the office workers in our detached garage heard (that's another story for another day if you don't know what I'm talking about), and cried like a baby. Silas' eyes were about as big as saucers then he crumpled in a puddle of tears himself. I would have liked to join them, but took a deep breath instead. I laid sweet Lieren, the champion sleeper, down (she went right to sleep with all this mess going on, just for the record) and turned to tend to the boys.

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And that's when it hit me. Again. They will only be this age once. I will only once ever have a 2 1/2 year old and two 7 month olds. Never again will I be potty training one and giving pacis to two. In this season alone will Silas tell me that his jobs are to learn to go potty and clean up toys, Sim's jobs are to learn to sleep and crawl, and Lieren's jobs are to learn to roll over and talk (if he's heard those once, he's heard them a hundred times). And there's something about a "just once" that makes the thing precious, even if it is hard.

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So I scooped up Sim and gave him back his paci, reached over and pulled Silas close, and took in the moment. Sim calmed and began to drift off. Silas laid his head in my lap with his thumb in his mouth and the chaos was over. Calm and quiet descended on the room. And since then I've been very much at peace that my babies are still babies. There has still been chaos, mind you. But the sweetness that follows the chaos is the most sweet of all. Only a God like ours could have known how to make the peace most peaceful after the crazy.

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We are actually having great success with potty training. Just one accident in the past two days! And Silas is learning to request to go when he needs to so we're doing less just sitting around in the bathroom. We're still doing diapers at nap and night and when we go out. I'll tackle those in the days to come.

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Here's the little man taking a break to do his thing...

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And for no other reason than for you to see them, here are Lieren and Simeon waiting to head to church this morning...