Okay. I've had company since Saturday morning early. Friday night I slept on the couch so as to leave all of the beds with clean linen, and I didn't sleep well. I was very excited...

One of the folks coming in was a friend that my friends had invited. She was "so excited about the trip" that she didn't want to miss it--despite the fact that she was whooping like Typhoid Mary. (Yep, we all have it now, including my friend and her husband and son, me, and my children!)

But, she also snored worse than anyone I've ever heard. Oh, and I also snore, but this gal could raise the roof on the building.

Okay, picture this: I give my master suite to my friend, her husband and her 8 year old son. I give my guest bedroom to their friend. (It shares a bathroom with my babies' room.) I sleep on the couch downstairs -- but, I really don't sleep. The snoring is incredible despite closed bedroom doors and my being on the floor below, but then I'm on the couch immediately beneath Sleeping Beauty.

So, when she goes into an extreme coughing fit at about 5:00 a.m. in the morning, does she come downstairs? Of course not. She gets up and uses the bathroom between the two bedrooms and hacks up a lung in there, thereby awakening both of my children. Then she goes in a talks to them and coughs on them. I scurry upstairs so that my kids won't wake everyone else up, and I take them downstairs. Then, she goes back to bed...

Come nap time??? She's gotten up (finally) and decided that it is time to bathe...which she does while I'm trying to put the babies down. When she finishes her bath, since they are still baby-babbling, she stops by to say "howdy."

Sunday morning and afternoon my children misbehave throughout church services. They are exhausted, which does not mean that they will be sleeping, thank you. Afterwards my friend tells me that I need to get a little stick and "train" them to behave in church. Thanks. I think to myself, "'Wonder if a little stick would work on company??"

To misquote the old "Love Story," "ompany means never having to respect a schedule..." So, we do interesting things like interfering with the babies going to bed on time; scheduling trips to the zoo leaving for San Diego at 1:30 p.m. and closing down the zoo at 5:00 p.m. -- in San Diego.

It's 5:10 p.m. While I'm trying to buy the zoo pix of my babies, the friend offers to watch my babies for me. What was I thinking??? I thanked her and went about my business... Shoot me for stupid. The next thing I'm hearing is her sweet, come hither to Caeleigh while she's trying to













find Caidan.











Wait a minute...did we just say FIND????? We're at the exit to the zoo in downtown San Diego, just 5 minutes from an international border and we DO NOT KNOW WHERE MY 23 MONTH OLD SON IS?????????

When I heard her use the word "find," I dropped the photos and bolted. She wasn't even calling his name, just ambling along. And there I am streaking ahead, screaming, "CAIDAN, CAIDAN, CAIDAN!!!" She says, "I think he's in the store..." You WHAT??? WE WEREN'T IN THE STORE... THE STORE WAS HALF A BLOCK AWAY FROM WHERE WE WERE... JUST WHEN WAS SHE GOING TO BECOME CONCERNED WITH LOCATING HIM??

I go into the store screaming for my son, and am ready to scream out, "EVERYBODY STOP WHERE YOU ARE -- we're looking for a small baby boy," when she says, "Oh, I see him." He was at the far back of the store. Of course, he could have been off the zoo premises and across the border by then, too. I was so upset that I couldn't even handle it. I went flying to where he was and there this dufuss is trying to get Caeleigh to hold her hand. I just handed her their jackets and said, "Here. Hold these -- they won't be able to get away from you." Then I grabbed a hand of each child's and headed for the exit.

I didn't know whether to hug my children up close or scream at them or beat them or simply sit down and sob my heart out. In the end, I opted to have the two of them hold hands and touch the car as I unlocked for us -- only to have Sleeping Beauty try to interfere with that by trying to get Caeleigh to hold her hand again. I kind of snapped at her: "Please. They know that they are supposed to hold each others' hands and touch the car. If you dismantle that I will wind up having to chase one or both of them." Then I put Caeleigh into the car, and picked Caidan up and sat him on the trunk of the car and told him that he was NEVER to leave Mommy and Caeleigh when we were out together. I got him into his car seat and apologized to my "guest" for having snapped at her. Her response???

"Well, I really love them and I was really scared for them."

I felt like saying horrid things. She didn't even seem aware of the significance of us sitting there on an international border. She opted to ride with my friends instead of riding with me and I climbed into my car. And then my knees went totally weak and I began sobbing and sobbing. I couldn't get stopped for a bit. It was so stupid of me to believe that someone else was going to watch my babies.

So, did things end there?

Of course not.

My best friend of all time, the one who thinks I should train my children about Jesus' love by applying a stick to their fannies, comments about what a "handful" my children are... H'mmmmm...

She and her husband want to have dinner with me before heading towards Palm Springs. Of course, it's nearing 6:30 now, and dark, and clearly the "witching hour" for my kids. I've never treated my children this way before. But I find Seaport Village and the Harbor House (finally) and by now it's 7:30 p.m. Caidan is asleep and Caeleigh is whining and I suggest that they eat dinner there and that I return home.

They want to dine with me. So, we make reservations at Black Angus in Rancho Cucamonga for 8:45 p.m. and drive back up. I awaken my babies and haul them in for "dinner." I fed them at the zoo knowing that they needed to have their dinner at the regular time. Now they are exhausted, fussy, coughing badly, and have been incarcerated in car seats for 4.5 out of the past 6.5 hours. We take them into the restaurant.

When Caidan begins fussing, we have an 8 year old who thinks he should be sarcastic and mimic him, something everyone else thinks is funny. Finally I turn on him and say, "You know, I can't make him stop doing that because he's a baby. But it would really help if I did not have to hear it in duplicate -- could you please stop?" Caeleigh was tired and frustrated and wanted only to snuggle up in my arms -- meanwhile, I had agreed to share a dinner with S.B. and my friend and they proceeded to eat most of it without my help. When we got ready to leave, my friend took it upon herself to corral Caidan (as though he is some sort of offender) and grabbed him by the hand/wrist. We were all walking along together, so he didn't mind that, but when it was time to step out into the parking lot, he balked at the curb, which I have taught him to do. We all hold hands together before going into the parking lot.

When he balked, my friend grabbed onto his wrist hard and he began screaming and twisting to try to get his hand away. She got steely eyed and informed me that he was "trying to twist away from her." The implication was that he was bad and she was in the right and it was late and I was tired and I didn't want to put our friendship on the line, but if anyone else had done this to my child I would have put them on their fanny. I was furious and so afraid that it was going to show.

I kept my cool and stayed quiet, but said, "He doesn't understand." She said, "Oh, he understands and I'm not going to let him go." I reached down for him and said, "No, he doesn't understand because we have a routine that we rely upon and he knows that he is not supposed to be stepping down off of the curb without Mommy." I scooped him up with me and set him back down next to Caeleigh, and all of the little hands flew into place and we walked out to my car. But I was seething.

People who do not have multiples can be so terribly smug about how things should work. They don't bother to analyze what is occurring when things are going right, and when the kids become tired and exhausted and things fall apart, they don't look at what is going wrong. I have very well behaved children, and they are sweet and good. I very rarely use any kind of physical discipline on my children, and I always explain to them what we are going to do. The only times when I might engage in physical discipline is when I know that they have understood me and are being deliberately rebellious. I saw nothing like that out of my children and I saw no efforts to communicate with them.

I'm sorry about how long this is, but am I missing something here? It's 24 hours later and I'm still furious. What have I missed?

You know what? If you think I have spoiled brats and that I'm in the wrong here, please give me a Christmas gift and keep it to yourself. I'm offended and hurt that people would treat my children poorly and expect me to condone it. If you understand and/or have been there, I'd love to hear how you handled it...

Fondly,
Cat w/3 Kittens
Caidan, Carina and Caeleigh
born at 31 weeks, 1/8/04.

It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. In memory of Carina, who was greatly loved.

http://lilypie.com>[

Cat,
I'm sorry you had to deal with such careless and obnoxious behaviour . I have been exactly where you are talking about at the San Diego zoo and was really stressed when I was watching my three and my nephew there for a few minutes. I would have been beside myself with panic if I was in your situation, I've only had that feeling for @ 30 seconds one time and I still get shaky thinking about it !

I have been in a similar situation with 2 of my sister in laws when my kids were @ 11 months old and have tried to forgive them, honestly for my own sake, not for theirs but still struggle with it sometimes. Braden still had a feeding tube and LOTS of extra care he needed, and I was completely and utterly exhausted in every way imaginable after 13 weeks of bedrest, 6 months of sleeping in the hospital w/ Braden not knowing if he could survive, then 5 more months of extreme amount of care at home..you get the picture.

I was THRILLED that my one SIL wanted to come stay with us for a while to help with the babies, I need some relief SO badly. She was not really any help at all, my DH made special trips to get her the foods she wanted, she didn't wake up early when the babies did, but did take them for a few walks in the stroller..She called my MIL to get 'help' it was too sressful at our house for her So the help for HER came in the form of another SIL coming to visit (this was the first time either of them had seen the babies.. So SIL # 2 arrives and starts in on us right away how we are to anal about things..we need to relax more, how we should deal with things.. And they both gave me a really hard time about not letting Braden go in the wading pool with my other two. He had a feeding tube, that if he got pool water in would likely cause him to be septic or at least very ill and could easily KILL him !!!! They just kept going on about how 'overprotective' I was and were really judgemental with me about EVERYTHING I did and were much more work to take care of as guests than I could have imagined. The morning after the wading pool 'incident' they sat me and DH down to tell us how we were doing things wrong Neither of them had kids but were 'experienced' because they had done babysitting.

I just stopped them after they started giving us their judgemental advice and said I want you out of my house on the next flight out of here. They called my MIL whining and my DH even paid the $50.00 fee for each of them to go on an earlier flight. I didn't have anything to do with them for a long time after that. We Have recently in the last few years been more cordial to eachother but I have decided it is not worth my energy to be upset with them. My one SIL called a year ago to say she was sorry that things happened like they did, because she 'understands' now because her one son had to have ear tubes put in because of frequent infections !!!! I actually laughed out loud when my DH told me that she thinks she understands now...

So the lesson I have learned from all of that and so many other times when people have treated me or my kids poorly is to tell them calmly that I don't agree, and that I don't have to explain my parenting to anyone, forgive their ignorance and move on..to many other ways to spend my energy these days. It did take me a long time to get over what my SILs did though....guess I'm not as forgiving as I think ?

I hope you have a magical Christmas and are able to do better than I have with forgiveness.

Lorraine

Reach for the heart of God and not just His hands.
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Life happens when love is given.


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