Deals

After Isis was born I had made a deal with myself.  It went a little something like this...Anytime Isis falls asleep in the car, I will treat myself to a splendid coffee drink and take a long drive.  Now the reason for this was because if Isis fell asleep in the car, I could never make the transfer to her crib.  She would wake up and that ten minutes would be her nap and the afternoon would be chaos.  So it was then I decided if she fell asleep, I would hit up the nearest drive thru for a fun beverage and veg the landscape for about an hour. It was actually something I looked forward to...some quiet, alone time.

Well, along comes Eliza and that deal is off only because it's very rare that two children fall asleep in the car at the same time.  It is very difficult to pull off the drive thru sneak attack move with Eliza because as soon as the car stops she startles from her slumber and announces "All done!" all the while looking rather confused and tired. Then there I am stuck with a Moo-Latte in my hand with one child crying because she wants it thus waking the other child who also wants it and my peaceful drive is done except that it never happened.

Last week we returned from a week long vacation in the woods with my family.  Needless to say, our children were spent. Exhausted.  I don't know what possessed us to do this, but Chris and I decided to go shopping for a new dresser at precisely 4:00 pm.  This is a bad idea on so many levels, even on a good day. It leaves no time for cooking supper, creating two hungry children.  Once 5:00 hits, all hell breaks loose in our house.  Pretty much every day.  Like clockwork.  Eliza starts to cry and pull on my leg making awesome.  Isis suddenly gets extremely hyper and starts sprinting through the house collecting weird things and wearing bizarre clothing. And with one child one my leg and the other galloping through the house at high speeds, Chris walks through the door from work and we attempt something called supper but I'm not sure we're getting it right.

Wait, what was I talking about?  Oh yes, dresser shopping. So upon arriving home from dresser shopping, the 5:00 Suckfest began. But this time is was even more awesomer. But not as awesomer as words I make up. Both children were crying and attempting to sit on my lap at the same time.  Isis was yelling at Eliza to stop looking at her and Eliza was pushing Isis because she was on my lap which to me says they were both mad the others' existence.  Of course dinner hadn't even been started yet so I did get to listen to them both cry for another 30 minutes while I attempted that, so that rocked.  And what was even cooler was Isis cried through the entire dinner which stretched it another 20 minutes. Sweet.

I shook my head and Chris smirked and rubbed my shoulders. So glad someone found the humor in this all because it really did need to be found.  I can't even describe what was happening.  I contemplated calling someone and just leaving my phone on the table so they could hear it.  But instead, I made a new deal with myself.  I was beginning to miss my old deal.  I told myself that when this was over and my children were in bed for the night, which by the way would be in about 5 minutes, that I would treat myself to a blizzard from Dairy Queen.  And I would bring it home and sit in my quiet house and shove my face with snickers chunks because I deserved it. I don't know why crying children magically makes me elibigle for ice cream, but I decided it was a good idea. Upon presenting this idea to myself and myself gladly accepting said idea, the noise suddenly became tolerable.  There wasn't necessarily an end in sight, but when it did come, it was gonna be great.

So while I think the drive-thru deal is still a good one and may still be put in to effect once Isis goes to school, I'll stick with this one for now.  Maybe this isn't really fair and what I should realize is these moments of extended chaos and crying and fighting among children are really just part of parenting. But know what, that idea is lame because it doesn't involve ice cream at the end.