These Days

Tonight everybody screamed at me at bedtime. It's not often I'm four for four with the simultaneous screaming. It's evenings like this that I have to chant in my head, over and over, "these days will pass. these days will pass. these days will pass...". One day, they'll do their own laundry, wash their own hair, not scream at me, hang up their own wet towels and not come out of their rooms seventeen times asking for water. Days like today make me CLING to these facts. And briefly, today, in a rare moment of peace, I told my husband...let's have just one more. Then bedtime chaos began and I realized I'm good with just four.

(Chloe, 8, Ava Joy, 6, Silas, 4, and Shepherd, 15 months)