I think the total number of hours I've spent with the cry of one of my children ringing in my ears exceeds 5, and at the moment I write this paragraph, one of them was still going strong. It was such a bad day and I was so desperate to get away that I called a friend up and invited myself over. This is a first in my more than six years of motherhood.
There also seems to be a mysterious link between the kids' moods and the weather. It started to pour down rain through rush hour, jamming the highways and trapping buses in snarls. Scott had to wait 40 extra minutes just to board his bus, and that doesn't even count the additional commute time home. He arrived 2 hours later than normal, which is a big deal on days like this. My sanity - my motivation to keep going and not hide in the shower for the night - is his return for dinner.
I find it interesting that only the girls threw screaming, crying, mucus-laden fits today. Sam has been pretty easy-going throughout the whole thing, even jumping in to try to entertain Anna while I finished talking to the doctor this morning. It worked too -- her crying turned to giggling at his antics. Praise God for my little comedian.
These girls have the stamina of triatheletes. Anna loves the drama -- she will throw herself flat on the floor, throw open the mucus floodgates, and wallow in her tears and snot until someone notices. I walked passed her to take a phone call outside today, which really enraged her. How dare I ignore her pitiful self?
Anyway, with her I believe she was overtired, hungry, and thirsty. She refused to drink from any cup but her Dora straw cup. She wasn't happy in my lap and wasn't happy on her own. Her tantrums were evenly scattered throughout the day, with the worst apparently occuring at bedtime.
Elli... well, she is always somewhat difficult to interpret. She was in high spirits all morning. But when I gave Sam the choice of movie, and he chose something she didn't want to see, that's when she descended into the death spiral. I had a tea party with her outside, but we had to come in when it started raining. Sam's movie wasn't done yet, so she had to listen to it, of all things. Then we tried to call Mamaw to tell her when we're coming to visit, and she didn't understand why we left a message and didn't actually talk to her.
That was the last straw. She didn't stop crying for an hour and a half. Not to eat. Not to drink. Not to say hi to Daddy. Not to use her Dynavox to tell me what she was crying about. Not even to get a bath.
Thank you God for giving me one boy. If I had had to deal with three tantrum throwers today, I think I would have exploded.
