From the moment I walk in the door at the end of the day, to the moment my head finally hits the pillow every night, I am constantly rushing to get everything ready for the next day...Just to rush out the door the next morning and start it all over again.
Thanks to a new position at work, my regular hours have shifted and I am now out at 430 instead of 500. While that may not seem like a big change, it does allow me to get home about 45 minutes earlier than I had been and with a life as hectic as hours that makes all the difference! And it allows me to enjoy moments like this...
After cleaning up from dinner tonight, I plopped myself down in the oversized chair in the living room and heaved a big "thank goodness I have a moment to catch my breath" sigh. I yelled to the 2 youngest girls to head to the bathroom to brush their teeth, and I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and tried to assess how much damage would be done if I just dosed off for a minute or 2. Realizing I hadn't heard the sound of little feet head towards the bathroom yet, I shouted for them once again. And that's when I heard it. Giggling. The kind of light hearted giggle that immediately energizes you and you cant help but perk up a little when you hear it. It makes you want to laugh along with it, even if you have no idea what is going on. This caught my interest so I opened my eyes and looked around to see where this wondrous sound was coming from. That's when I saw a hunched over, 2 legged, headless figure approach me and slam into me and the chair. It took me a second to realize what was going on. It turns out, this mysterious figure was none other than McKenzie with her legs in the arm holes of a hoodie, bent in half with her head stuck in the hood. The giggles that accompanied this were coming from Leah, Beatriz (our Spanish exchange student) and Alyvia as they all bent, tucked and contorted their way into hoodies of their own. They looked like what I imagine the chicken I have planned for dinner tomorrow would look like if it suddenly leapt out of the crockpot and proceeded to run around my house. I know, this is all extremely weird. But if you stop paying attention to how weird it is that I have multiple children in my house that like to put sweatshirts on upside down and run around the house like little scary Gollum-creatures, you will see the really cool part of this night. I had a 5 year old, 8 year old, 13 year old, and 16 year old all laughing so hard they were almost crying. They were playing together, enjoying each others company, being silly together. For a few minutes, the age difference didn't matter, there was no language barrier, no "cool" teens vs little kids....They were just 4 sisters hanging out, being weird and having fun with each other. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing...
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