A day of days...

Today was one of those days.  A day I haven't had in so many years and it was frustrating, hair pulling, comical and exhausting all at once.  We have four older children...how did we forget so past?  How it is that things from our past sometimes have to be relearned or repeated over and over so we remember how it is?

Paisley has brought new life to our family but with that little body of cuteness comes a surefire little spirit of spunk, attitude, assurety of what she wants and tantrums when we don't understand all that she needs.  She's the fifth and I'm completely understanding that buried in the middle of all these kids, she had to come with a little spunk to survive all of us.

Although Ammon was at church yesterday, Paisley let us have it. Our new time for church, 11am, is NOT working with her current almost toddler schedule of feeding and nap time.  The last three weeks have been interesting and she's tired and exhausted by the time we get to church.  Not to mention, hungry.

Ammon and I have done it before...four times before and for that I'm grateful.  Parenthood has taught us a thing or too.  Years ago, had I gone through what I had yesterday, I would have died of embarrassment, probably cried my eyes out of exhaustion and wondered how children could possibly be designed to do things like throw a tantrum or have blowouts.  Now I know...they come with their own design and personality and have to all be mothered in their own individual way.  Thank goodness since Paisley is the fifth we've had some experience prior to mothering her!!

Yesterday Ammon chose the pew right in the middle when we arrived at the church..not the comfy chairs in the back that I've chosen for years. The ones where we can hide and not be noticed as much. We are a family of almost eight after all and take up quite a bit of room.  Paisley had her first little outburst when the sacrament went by.  There is something about "telling" a one year old that they can only have one little cup of water and one morsel of bread, that doesn't go over well and leaves said one year old in a state of panic.  Especially since she's become quite the munch.  Her binkie got put in her mouth over and over again.

As the meeting continued, she got more and more sleepy and her balance was off.  Her binkie dropped a pew behind us and while leaning over looking for it, Paisley smacked her head right on the wooden pew.  Boy oh boy did the screaming ensue and there reverberate off the chapel walls.  I was thankful my pregnant self, heels and all, had a bit of grace yesterday as I whisked her out of the meeting as fast as possible...you know before she took that second breath of air while screaming and turning blue.  My nylons, which were then almost around my ankles, couldn't tell you the same story.  Nylons and pregnant tummies aren't meant to be combined and although I didn't trip in my heels, the whole way out I was fearing that my nylons were going to fall off my legs, baby screaming and all!

Minutes later, I calmed her down and we returned.  Being the amazing brother Ethan is, he offered to hold Paisley and got her laughing.  Laughing so much that she leaned back and smacked her head AGAIN on the pew.  Seriously!??! Ammon then had the wonderful task of whisking her blue, screaming self out the second time.  I sat and chuckled about our situation...it had only been forty minutes from sitting down.

Thankfully, Paisley was ready for her nap by then.  Five minutes later, Ammon brought her covered (and straight jacketed!) in her carseat, dark cover and all, sound asleep.  All four kids thought Ammon had some secret juice he had fed her since she was out that fast.  Nope...it was finally just nap time.  We enjoyed ten more minutes of glorious silence while she slept.

During the rest of the day, this little angel of ours managed to scream through Relief Society when I didn't give her goldfish fast enough, have a HUGE blowout before going to dinner at a friends out and actually ate a bit of the mess from the diaper before we could throw it away.  It was one of our finer parenting moments.  And one of our most disgusting too....;-)

And I all did was laugh about it.  That's all you can do sometimes...laugh about the hard predicaments.  That or you finally fall apart and can't handle it.

As I watched Paisley sleep last night I pondered all the things going through my head.  How could one sweet, innocent little thing cause so much havic?  How could I be so exhausted after one day? How am I going to handle a baby plus her spunk?  And yet I still love her and adore her all that much more.

But then I was reassured that we take things a day at a time.  The baby isn't coming tomorrow and Paisley WILL get passed this.  I sometimes don't know how new moms of one child handle things.  They have nothing that tells them that these hard stages don't last forever....and that is mentally overwhelming at times.  Thankfully Ethan, Brynlee, Hailey and Karli give me hope that these small crazy glimpses are just moments and they too will pass.  I can only hope Paisley will fly by the terrible twos and overwhelming threes, but experience has told me different.  We will be going through those stages too but it won't be forever.  I won't be pregnant and tired forever (I hope!!).

I love being a mom and love that each of our kiddos has given me something to grow about and make me tougher.  I'm grateful for humor because sometimes that's all I have these days.  And Paisley...I sure wonder how the next couple of months will church remaining at eleven in the morning will go...but before I know it, she'll be a kindergartner starting her first day of school and skipping off with lunch in tow, ponytails swinging. I've been through that too...and it passes so fast....

I wonder how many more tantrums, blow outs and humbling moments I'm in for in the next couple of years, especially with another little bundle on the way...