Why?

Yesterday was a normal day. Well, not quite normal - I got to go shopping for an hour...for me...by myself...and found something I actually really liked...that fit! Other than that, a completely normal day. Good, bad and ugly.

At the end of the day, we went to Costco to grab literally two things and renew our membership. I got up to the front of the line to check out with four kids and a belly in tow and then realized I had left my debit card at home and didn't have enough cash. I moved toward the exit, answering the same question twenty times "Why aren't we buying something?" and then took a potty break, because, hey, can we walk by a potty when it's inconvenient without needing to use it?

In the car, I called Matt. It was still a little too early to pick him up, but not early enough to do anything else. We drove to his work and then decided to go up and see him. (I figured it would take an extra five minutes to file the kids out of the car and get them into the elevator, up to the correct floor and quietly through the hall.

Luckily (for us, not the people there) THREE fire engines were checking out a nearby store. The excitement of those three firetrucks cannot be described. We watched and wondered and Will yelled happily at the lights. Finally, we made our way upstairs (I can only take children in a busy parking lot for so long before my stress-o-meter blows a gasket).

Dad was just about ready when we got there, so Joe stayed and I took the kids back downstairs. Four or five people from Matt's office got into the elevator with us. One lady said, "You're having another one! Good grief! We're going to HAVE to do something to help you here" referring metaphorically to the one child in my arms, two girls by my side and one up still in the office. I laughed and smiled and one of the other ladies said, "No, she wants to have six or eight!" Someone else responded, "Really?" And I said, "We'll just take it one at a time."

A sweet short woman said, "I just don't know how you do it." I responded "A day at a time." She repeated it again, but was interrupted by another woman who said, "I don't know why you'd want to." Thankfully, we were walking out the front doors at that point, and the girls were running toward the street (and then miraculously stopped right on the spot where I've told them previously they need to stop to wait for me. amazing!) so it didn't seem rude to not respond.

Why? Why do we have kids? Why will I have five children in eight years? Aside from insanity! The funny thing was that as we were riding in the elevator with these put together office ladies (who incidentally were racing to the door the very second the office closed) who made an income and had personal time and never had to fight for ten minutes to take a shower without interruption, and ate meals when they were still hot, and never woke up in the middle of the night to any child's bodily function needing to be cleaned up (Jeni I loved your blog post on this!!) I was thinking "I would never choose that."

Yesterday, I fixed my girls' hair...three times as they continued to take it out. I picked Joe up right after school. I refereed a million fights and tried to be patient with the whining of one child who clearly hadn't had enough sleep, tried to herd four kids through three stores as they tried to touch everything and wander off, and saw the wonder of not one - but three - firetrucks parked right next to us, and felt the first raindrops of the huge thunderstorm together and showed Joe where the storm drains were and that, no, we really weren't going to be flooded today, and a million other things. At noon, I got to curl up with my one year old in my arms and take a nap. That is one of life's precious irreplaceable moments. My children make me want to tear my hair out. And they make my heart so full it hurts. Whether you stay home or not, having children is the most...experience in the world. I don't even have an adequate word for it. Why have children? When you have children and give your heart over to them, you'll understand.