Nanny logic.

Today was quite a balance of chaos and relaxation.

Except it didn't feel balanced.

It felt like this:

Everybody, even the kids, slept until eight this morning. Which is good, because we didn't get home from Shabbat dinner until after eleven last night. The kids were a wreck. T and I had both fallen asleep at E's mom's house. I had risen in time to change all the kids into jammies and throw them into the car, but we forgot to potty so Daddy had to wake R up at home and make her go.

That was a bust.

No one else fell asleep in the car; the baby wouldn't even drink his milk.

And we actually remembered (thanks to me - toot toot! - that was my horn) that we needed milk and eggs for breakfast this morning and stopped at a store. It wasn't until we were parked in front of the store fighting over who had to get out and go inside that we realized not one of us had any money on us.

Anyway, we slept in a bit, got up and started the day with a late breakfast and then T, in a rare burst of confidence, volunteered to take the two bigger kids to the grocery store with her.

Score.

The monster baby showed us his dislike for staying up late by screaming all morning and ruining what should have been a productive day.

I got the basement cleaned, something that sorely needed to be done. My shoe collection had taken over my side and my clothes, feeling displaced, had relocated to the laundry room. The laundry room -- well, let's not talk about that. And the playroom and craft table appeared to have just narrowly survived several hurricanes.

I spent the morning ignoring the baby while he cried and played in the basement playroom. I threw out half of the obnoxiously large school art projects that the kids brought home in the half year that I've been here, neatly stacked the rest and herded my wardrobe back into place.

I then spent TWO HOURS trying to get the #!@$%&#*! baby to take his nap.

T came home in the middle of the process and apologized for having to leave me and go again. You're probably wondering where E was in all of this.

Well, I can tell you.

Sleeping.

He has neck pain. Men are such crybabies.

Anyway, the two big kids went into the playroom while I wrestled with Monkey and eventually forced him to sleep.

I fed J, half fed R and then T came home and whisked the girl child off to a birthday party leaving me to try to salvage what was left of nap time.

E chose that moment to wake up. He started feeding J again, who then got annoyed and started whining.

Only a short, precious hour after falling asleep, the monster baby woke up.

Crying.

He snuggled with Daddy on the couch for a good while and I snuggled up with J on the day bed and he played on Daddy's iPhone while I played on mine.

This should have been a relaxing time, since it is Saturday after all, but the baby hadn't eaten lunch yet and I hadn't eaten lunch yet and I knew the whole time I was sitting down that I should get up and feed us before R got home and things got loud and out of control again.

But I just couldn't.

And so instead I had that kind of down time where the whole time you are down you feel awful about it and in the end it's not fun at all.

We did finally get the baby fed and then he spent the rest of the evening making us all wish we were deaf.

E took the two boys to his mom's and I sat down for ten minutes. Just sat. Alone and happy.

And then I ran around the house doing all the things I couldn't do with J or Monkey on my heels or last nerve. I made beds, I changed loads of laundry (don't ask me how long they sat in the washer because I don't know and I don't care!), I ate lunch and I wrestled with a vase of dead flowers T brought home from a wedding recently. Someone had TAPED the flowers into the vase but before that they had also filled the vase with SAND and TAPED that in too. And covered it in plastic wrap. And taped that in too. T said to just throw it away but I wasn't about to let it win.

Tonight when we gathered to heat up leftovers for dinner all the adults groaned. We were tired, the kids were tired and the food did not look appealing. Those of us on diets were not about to eat that rice and I was not feeling day old chicken. T, who is on the opposite of a diet as she is eating for two plain and simply was not interested.

"Let's go out for dinner." E suggested. "Me, you and Kimmy. We'll just leave the kids here."

I wish.

We ordered Chinese. The kids ate the leftovers.

Sort of.

Not one of them wanted Chinese, so that was their mistake. But Monkey apparently hadn't reached his screaming quota for the day yet and he started throwing a tantrum as soon as we sat down. T took him out of the room and fed him alone elsewhere in the house. I didn't even ask where.

J made it through chicken, spit out a bite of rice and was put to bed. R ate pretty well at the beginning and then started complaining that her tummy hurt soooo bad. I said, fine, no dessert and she perked right up again.

And then there was peace.

Bed time was surprisingly uneventful. I watched My Fair Lady, the greatest movie of all time and thought a lot about going to bed but instead sat through the whole thing.

I was finally relaxing for real and I never wanted it to end. And I was thinking how clever God was to throw today at me after how comfortable I have been all week. He is very clever.

I can't remember if I have quoted this here before but whenever I have terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days I think of Elizabeth Prentiss. She's a fantastic author with an uncanny ability to speak right to a Christian woman's heart.

She says in one of her books that she gives thanks for the hard days that remind her to look forward to Heaven.

All day that logic has been running through my brain without me wanting it or giving it permission to be there, but it's amazing how much it helps me to laugh at Monkey while he screams for a different water cup or at J for following me around with the iPhone asking me to play the game he wants to play but is too hard for him. All these annoyances are very laughable because they don't matter, and they are just that; annoyances. What is my being annoyed in the face of Heaven?

It's nothing.

And that's magnificent.

And so now I am going to bed, quite at peace with today. And I'm super excited because it is finally cold enough in my room again sleep comfortable under the electric blanket!

Woohoo!