We March

Sean and I have a joke we share that's not so funny, ever since we had kids.  We like to say, "It doesn't matter, we're just marching towards our own deaths now, anyway." Bleak, no?  I think it started when, before we had kids, a friend who had two made a comment that after you have kids, your life is basically over, it's lived for them and their futures more.  We were both shocked and horrified by such a statement.  Of course we were still going to have our completely independent lives and find time to pursue interests that pertained to OUR life journey after we had kids.  (I guess we have to maintain this kind of denial or nobody would reproduce.)  Then when we had Peanut, my dad made a comment, "Well, you've replaced yourselves now."  He meant, I think, one girl, one boy, but it only fed our joke.  We've replaced ourselves.  Nothing left to do but get these kids launched, then we can check out.  Oh, we laughed a good long time over that one.  

It goes like this:
Me: "I can't believe that I have to get a tooth pulled. I'm only 36 and I'm already losing my teeth!"
Sean:  "Well, you don't need all your teeth, you're just marching towards your death."

Sean:  "Man, I feel like between the house, the kids, work, there is just nothing left for anything else."
Me: "Who cares about anything else, you're just marching towards your death anyway."

Jeez, as I'm writing it, it strikes me as so depressing. We love our kids and our life and we wouldn't trade it. And all the little moments of snuggling and super cuteness and amazement and all that goes with parenting, make things worth it. We march willingly, with good humor. And parents assure me that it does get less intense, your kids get older and more independent and they go to school.  So I'm confident that it won't always feel this way.

But in the last two days, we have been GOing.  Especially Sean.  Yesterday he mowed the lawn and painted the deck, and watched the kids while I made dinner, did yoga, cleaned and vaccummed all the floors.  Then he put Ardan to bed, and then got up to work three more hours for his job.  Today we took Sean's truck in for repair, I went school supply and grocery shopping with the kids, put the baby down. Then I had a shower, which proceeded to run out a leaky pipe all over our storage room.  I found a plumber and called insurance while Sean cleaned up the mess downstairs.  The plumber came, fixed it.  We went to pick up the truck. I made dinner.  We bathed Boodge, Sean put him to bed.  He is working again now.

When I told my cousin (childless) just about the pipe problem, she said, "Wow, I can't believe you had to deal with all that today."  I laughed, because truly, that wasn't too much.  I hadn't even mentioned to her the truck, groceries, prepping, feeding, and cleaning up of 3 meals, playing outside for 2 hours, dishwasher emptying, laundry putting away, dressing and undressing, meltdowns, injuries, and accidents that also happened today.

"Having to care for multiple small kids makes you capable of doing more than you once imagined you could do every day, day after day," I explained to her.  "More than you want to do, actually, truth be told." And all that with compromised sleep and little time for any sort of self-care or repair of damages done.  But we love the little (blank)s.  So we march.  To keep them fed, clothed, housed, safe, healthy, happy, growing, learning.  To hear them giggle, so feel their little skinny arms around our necks, to plant kisses on their soft-sticky skin.  We march on.

Some days, it feels that way, anyway.