Late last summer after June was born,
but I think before Henry had started his first year of preschool,
Andrew got around to putting up the last piece of the swing set in our backyard
...the monkey bars.  

He wanted it to be super secure so he mixed up a bit of concrete to set the post,
and of course Henry watched and helped and soaked up getting to work with him with
on a project.

So, days later, I'm sitting on the couch feeding June,
and a whiz of dusty Ham flies by the backdoor,
and I'm like, OMG what did he get into...

...and then I see this:

He had helped himself to the bag of concrete mix Andrew had forgotten to put away and mixed up a bit of cement in the water table...with water from Franklin's water bowl, concrete and a bit of potting soil for good measure.  I got to it before I found out
what he was going to slather it on. 

He moves a mile a minute, but his brain moves faster. 
Faster than my foggy, sleep-deprived, at-time pre-occupied brain anyways.

We're currently on day two of summer break, and our morning ended at meltdown city with the oldest being sent to his room for a nap without lunch because he either a) can't handle the humidity, b) is a little lost without his school routine, or c) both.

I just told my neighbor thank goodness he still naps, so of course today he didn't and instead has spent the last two hours knocking on his door and talking loudly because he knows I'm just around the corner saying things like "is it raining?" as drops slide down his window and thunder booms from the dark sky and alternating between "mommy, can you let me out?  I can act nice now!" and yelling "I don't like you!!!" because he's realized that words hurt, and he's trying to get me to react to him.  

And, I'm trying to think between the thuds on the back of his door
and remind myself to take deep breaths and stick to the "love and logic" plan
when naptime/QUIET time is over, and come on,
it's not like he's mixing up concrete in the backyard again this summer.

Because it's all gone and we got rid of that dang water table.

Did I ever tell you I found my wedding rings?  

Yep, all three of them.

After we had searched our entire house for days, 

Andrew and I decided they must have really gotten flushed down the toilet 

like Henry said.  

So, he took the toilet off and shined his flashlight down the drain 

to see if by chance they had gotten stuck in the trap.

No rings.

Then we decided that maybe they got tossed down one of the sink drains in the kids' bathroom so he took those apart too...and happened to break one doing it.

But no rings.

I was starting to accept the idea that I might just have to be ringless for a while, thinking we would hold out for them to miraculously show up, and if not, maybe we'd replace one of my bands first and then figure out the rest later.

Well, a week later, I was on the floor after breakfast 

playing the kids and their play kitchen, 

and Henry pulls out a pretend food container full of random things (go figure) 

including a clump of dirt and one of my bands!!  

I immediately ask him where the dirt came from, and then put two and two together that we had just moved our big house plant pot out of the front of our living room because we'd just put the Christmas tree up.  

I jump up and go over to it and kind of swish the dirt around a bit and there, 

beneath a thin layer of dirt are my two other buried rings.

--

This is a terrible analogy, but I feel a bit like my rings.

I've felt a little buried and lost this year, feeling like sometimes I find my rhythm in this mom-of-three role and then other times it feels so hard and impossible to keep up.  Like when Nelle tried to walk out the front door of Chick-fil-A yesterday alone while I searched for her in the play space and bathroom, all the while holding June 

and trying to keep my eye on Henry too. 

Three kids is a lot.  Three kids this close to together in age is a lot.  Three kids while I'm trying to work during naptime is a lot.  Three kids, one of them being Ham is a lot.  Three kids, one of them spitting up all the time is a lot.  Three kids, one of them taking forever to potty train is a lot.

About a month and a half ago, June finally grew out of her reflux,

and we traded extra laundry covered in spit up for extra laundry covered in pee.  

Ahhh, motherhood is so glamorous.

But within the last couple of weeks, Nelle has finally (knock on wood) decided she'll use the potty consistently, June sleeps through the night most nights, and Henry has been responding to the new discipline method his preschool director suggested.  

And what a difference it has made.  All of it.  All of it, all of it, all of it.   

I'm digging out.  

 Again.

 

Maybe that's a theme for this stage of our life?  

Digging in the dirt, digging out of laundry piles, digging out of work deadlines, 

but also digging in and putting in the work and the effort to make it worthwhile.