My husband’s colleague texted him from another state. He and his family are staying with their extended family this week for Christmas. He said that the house is crazy and chaotic, full of kids and dogs. He told my husband that it must be like living with our family.
We started having kids less than two years after we were married. We had four children in the span of eight years and we’ve always had at least two dogs and other pets, in the mix, throughout the years. This past fall has been strange and surreal, with it being just my husband, myself and my daughter at home, with the two fur babies, who are at least, out of their puppy stage (sort of) .
The three of us have become accustomed to a fair amount of “quiet”, only having to go to the grocery store once a week, laundry always being clean and hung up, and jugs of milk actually going sour before we drank/used it all. I better understand now, why people have always said to me, “I don’t know how you do/did it.” With the college boys home the last week or so, and the grown son coming home tonight, the quiet moments are sparse, the grocery runs are daily, the stinky laundry is piling up at a monumental rate and we’ve run out of milk more than once, already. We are all whizzing around in different directions and it is hard to keep up with everyone’s comings and goings, as hard as I try. The dogs have seemed to pick up on this whirling energy and they are behaving like two furry toddlers, way too hopped up on sugar. It is chaotic. It is crazy. And it is love. It is us. This is us. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.