What a day...

 Happy Mother's Day to all you mommas out there. I hope it was a great day for you all- it was sure interesting here. We spent the morning visiting with the neighbors, then we came home, had lunch and played and watched a movie for a while. The kids were fighting, like siblings do, but they also played nicely together. Bennett was in a "hold me or I'll scream" mood for a few hours too, limiting my ability to do most anything else (not that I minded all that much- he was pretty smiley when he was held).
  Finally, we all laid down to have rest time together (I thought that would be nice, especially today, to cuddle with my kiddos for nap time), except it was anything but! The older two were rolling all over and yelling and screaming until I finally put in Lion King. After a little while, Sophia asked to get up and I agreed. She was quietly playing for some time until I got suspicious. I went into the bathroom and was welcomed by the smell of - you guessed it- poop. There was poop on the floor, on a magazine, and most interestingly, in a toy airplane. I nearly lost it! How many times do we have to do this??? I yelled and disciplined, then spent 30 minutes cleaning my poop-infused bathroom while all three of the kids were screaming. Happy mother's day indeed! I sat with Sophia afterward and asked what kept possessing her to poop in places other than the potty. First she said it was dangerous- that mean guys were in the potty. I reminded her that she went pee in the potty and she changed her story- "I just don't want to." I explained that was unacceptable and that sometimes we have to do things that we don't want to do. I told her how yucky it was for me to have to clean up her poop all of the time, and then I realized that for the last couple weeks she was sporadically asking for "poopers." (Poopers are these little knit animals from Auntie Sara that have skittles come out of their butts- used for potty training) I explained to her that she doesn't get poopers because she already knows how to use the potty, and that Noah gets them because he is still learning. (Highlight of today- Noah voluntarily went poop on the potty!!) I told her that I don't get anything for using the potty; "Because you're a big girl?"- "Yep, and so are you." I really hope that's the end of this nonsense!

My Mother's Day bouquet from my family

   After we all calmed down, I made a quick supper. While sitting together, I had the kids all copy me in taking a deep breath to calm ourselves. Then we took turns apologizing to each other: me for yelling, the kids to me for misbehaving, and the kids to each other for not playing nicely. The rest of the night has gone MUCH better. Sophia told me she loved me so so so so so so much and all the kids played very nicely for about an hour. Bennett is now content laying down playing with his baby gym and the kids helped me clean the living room. The day didn't turn out quite as bad as I thought, and I just keep reminding myself how very blessed I am to have three beautiful, wonderful (albeit sometimes naughty) children. God is so good! And I just got a bouquet of the most beautiful flowers I've seen. Thank you to my husband for not forgetting me! I hope you all had a wonderful day. There's always something going on in this circus of mine, but what's not to love!