A January Sunday

After sleeping in till 6:45am and reveling in that much-needed decadence/silence on Sunday morning, I sat in bed in my quiet room and read my scriptures. I relish mornings where I can have a solid half hour or more of time to myself to wake up fully and meditate/study/ponder/prep myself for the day.

When I serenely entered the kitchen to eat breakfast at 7:30am, the kids were playing on the couch with piles of blankets. They have this game they play where they say "I'm verrrry very tired!" and then Amber heaps every blanket and pillow in the house on top of the tired people. Then she climbs on top of them. This game degenerated into a territory dispute wherein the girls tried to claim more of the couch than Jay. Kicking, screaming, wrestling, stealing, tumbling, shrieking, and general mayhem ensued. It was almost more than I could handle. I gave the kids a few warnings and admonitions, but they continued with the chaos. 

Eventually Jeff heard the noise through the floor and he came up from the basement and helped me disperse the crazies: Jay to his room, Rose to her room, Amber to the basement with Jeff. That was only the beginning. The kids fought and poked and squealed at each other all the way out the door to church. A slim silver lining happened when Rose helped Amber get her Sunday dress on, zipping up the back and tying the bow for her. Then it all hit the fan again and I had to chase/track Amber down to the playroom and do her hair while she sat on the floor shooting a Nerf gun. It required the efforts of both Jeff and myself to get Amber's tights in place. I kept her cornered while Jeff retrieved the tights. Then I somehow got her legs into the stockings and released her.

Amber emerged from the playroom a few minutes later with a sword (a light saber) stuck down the back of her dress and protruding up out of her back collar. She informed us "I'm She-ra, the Princess of Power!" Then she pulled out her sword saying, "by the honor of Grayskull!" Jeff obliged her by turning on the She-ra cartoon theme song and Amber felt like a true princess of power. It was a proud moment for Jeff, since he loved He-man and She-ra when he was four. We made our resident Princess of Power leave her sword at home when we left for church. 

Top: little Jeff, 33 years ago, with the wooden He-man sword his dad carved for him.
Bottom: She-rAmber with her light saber and Sunday dress: fancy and fierce--that's how Amber rolls.

Amber was very much a princess of power, or maybe more of a warrior princess, during church. She was relentless in her wiggling, squirming, kicking, licking, biting, squeezing, poking-with-a-pen, etc. Several times I found myself struck with the church giggles in response to her antics, mostly when she directed her efforts on Jeff. Watching him grit and bear it was hilarious! Then I would have mercy and take a turn holding Amb on my lap, whereupon she started trying to lick my face or kiss me wetly with a loud smacking sound or other such disruptive distracting non-churchy behavior.

Jay and I shared a hymnbook during sacrament meeting. While were singing As I Search the Holy Scriptures, Jay yawned as we sang the line "may my heart be blessed with wisdom". He kept saying the words through the yawn, and I started laughing because it sounded funny. Jay joined in with his mischievous grin, but misunderstood my original reason for laughing. When he had recovered the use of his mouth, Jay leaned in to my ear and said with a sparkle in his eye, "what would my heart do with wisdom?" HAHAHA, Oh my quick-witted Jay. 

On the way home from church, Jay asked, "Daddy, will you make us crepes for lunch?" 

"Hmmmm...sure, I can do that," Jeff replied. 

"If you had said no, I would have carried out a threat," Jay quickly informed us. 

Laughing, Jeff responded, "anything you do to me, I can do ten times better or worse to you for at least the next few years!" We had to ask Jay what his threat was and he told us matter-of-factly, 

"I would have called crepes CRAPES for the next year." HAH! Jay's wit! That is the perfect trick to play on Jeff with his strong loyalty to French pronunciation. We laughed our heads off.

Jeff made crepes for lunch. During lunch, we had a small, fragmented family discussion about church lessons and Rose told us all about what her primary class talked about. The kids kept completely derailing from the topic. Then they ran off to play in the playroom for an hour, after which we gathered to watch a movie. Rose did not want to watch it. As is her way, she whined and mourned and negotiated endlessly to try and change the movie or get solo computer time instead of watching the movie. She went on and on until we banished her to her room until she could be kind again. Fifteen minutes or so later, she came back in, sat down, and quietly watched the rest of the movie with us. Afterwards, Jeff asked her if she enjoyed it and she sheepishly said yes.

After the movie, I told Jay and Rose that if they unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, they could have computer time till dinner. Jay got to work unloading (it's his turn this week). Meanwhile, Amber started whining that her sock was wet because she had stepped in water. I helped her remove her tights. At her request, I unzipped her dress while I was at it and eventually convinced her to go put her clothes in the laundry. She returned a minute or two later wearing nothing but underwear. Jay was sitting on the couch, having finished his dish duty. 

Amber had that quintessentially Amby-like glint in her eye as she walked over to Jay. Clad in nothing but saggy underwear, she instigated a full-on war with Jay, jumping off the couch, wrestling him, and teasing him till he had no choice but to attack her back. Eventually he ran away and put on his ninja gear--the black balaclava and gloves he got for Christmas, plus his black turtleneck. NinJay ran back into the family room and threw down one of his gloves at Amber's feet. The gauntlet was thrown DOWN, a clear head-on challenge. Without hesitating, Amber STOMPED on Jay's gauntlet, alternating feet--left-right-left-right--pulverizing it into the carpet before running off, still clad only in her underwear. Jeff and I burst into laughter, and Jay joined in, acknowledging that round as an Amber victory. Eventually Amber returned--this time completely naked. Eventually we got her to put clothes on. Good grief, wild child.

After only a dozen or two reminders, Rose finished loading the dishwasher and the kids scampered off to have their computer time. Silence reigned at last. Then dinnertime came and it was utter bedlam again until bedtime. Somewhere in that madness we inserted a few words about this week's Come Follow Me lesson around the dinner table. 

At first Jeff and I thought that the reason for the utterly reckless wildness of our children was entirely  the result of their triple sibling sleepover on Friday night. They never get as much sleep when they all sleep in the playroom in a heap of blankets together. Today we realized that it wasn't just the hour of missed sleep on Friday night that was causing the ruckus. It is WINTER: January, working her malicious mischief once again. Curse the freezing fog! Our kids have some serious cabin fever and their parents are feeling the effects. My poor amygdala has fired enough neurons in one day to last me a week. Goodness.

Next time the children get this crazy, I'm banishing them outside. Why didn't I think of that sooner?

[the sleepover: they constructed a box fortress and slept in the pile of junk-treasure, my little dragons.