I spent the majority of the morning dealing with meltdowns or cuddling with kids who had just come out of meltdowns.
I scrapped the applesauce making plan in favor of watching an extra long Bob the Builder show and then taking the kids to the park.
After getting home from a much needed park experience, I started making sandwiches. Yeb came in the kitchen naked, wanting to wear a red cape instead of clothes. I explained that a cape is worn in addition to clothes, and he ran off to find clothes.
Meanwhile, Tam and Kate were pretending to play the piano with the children's songbook on the stand. I asked them not to play with the book because kids tend to rip the pages inadvertently, and because there were some pictures resting on the front of the piano waiting to be hung, and I didn't want them to be bumped.
About a minute later Yeb came in with some clothes for me to help him get on, and I realized he didn't have his diaper on. When I asked him about it he said it was poopy.
After shuttling him to the bathroom I was mid-wipe when I heard a crash of breaking glass. I knew that it was one of the pictures. I yelled for everyone to stay exactly where they were so no one would get glass cuts, and frantically got Yeb diapered.
I came out to find shattered glass, and I couldn't help but tear up as I cleaned up the remnants of my birthday present, and teared up even more as Kate apologized.
I got the vacuum out to take care of any tiny glass pieces, only to realize that one of the prongs on the vacuum plug had gotten bent between yesterday afternoon and today, badly enough that it won't go into the socket. Fortunately we have 2 vacuums, so I pulled the other one out and took care of the rest of the cleanup.
I went to find Kate to make sure she knew I wasn't mad at her, just really sad, and as I was talking to her and carrying her in to eat lunch she started crying because she was sad, too. I realized that she was poopy, too, but decided to let it ride until after lunch.
During lunch Tam made a point of asking if I was okay and giving me hugs. I called Kerry to cry and tell him what happened.
There are more and more instances where I feel like the challenges we're dealing with in a given situation are regular parenting challenges, but most of the time there are added layers of trauma, stress, and attachment. It pretty much feels like parenting on steroids.
