What's One More?

This past week, we had the pleasure of having my cousin's son come and stay with us for four nights while his parents got away on a much needed vacation for just the two of them. Since I've already extolled the necessity for parents to do exactly that for a while, and because my kids get along with her son so well and I've long stated that "with this many kids, what's one more?" is an overriding philosophy of mine, I thought it would be a piece of cake. And in many ways it was: there were extra ears to listen to my daughter's incessant chatter. He's an incredibly well-behaved child and he did a lot of teaching my kids how they are supposed to behave, and it was refreshing to have a six year old telling my kids what I tell them on a daily basis. He isn't a picky eater and I think it was great for my kids to see him eat everything I put in front of him, mostly fruits and veggies and meat. But I'll tell you what else it was: a heck of a lot of work, for which I wasn't exactly prepared.

Last week was an incredibly hard week for us in The Fish Pond. My husband blew his engine last week. That act took an entire day away from my schedule last week, and added a bunch of tasks to the other days that absolutely had to be done - rental car, shop schedules to get the car fixed. You'd be surprised how much time you spend with the phone against your ear when you need a new engine. There was a lot of driving around in the working car ferrying people places. None of that had anything at all to do with my cousin's son coming to visit, except bad timing. I was determined to make it fun for him no matter what.

So I did that. I took them to the playground. I took them out for ice cream. We rented movies a couple of nights. I had planned on taking them to the splash playground, but rain got in the way of that, so the Wii was the lifesaver and we played baseball and bowled and boxed and headed soccer balls and giggled our butts off. My aunt sent along some age-appropriate workbooks that ended up being lifesavers, too. I asked him his favorite foods and made them for dinner. We took him for a walk in the woods along the creek, and they got all muddy and my husband didn't care. We took all the kids out to eat. I think he had a good time.

But it was hard, much harder than I expected. It was extra dishes and laundry, thanks to the mudwalk. I usually run the dishwasher an average of 1.5 times a day, but I had to run it twice a day during his visit. I underestimated how much the days of only 1 run of the dishwasher give to my coping abilities. It was hard to keep my frustration level down when dealing with the emotions of five kids under the age of 10. And mostly, it meant I had to be on my best behavior, something I'm not so good at when under a lot of stress. I couldn't yell and scream in response to their yelling and screaming and sass and disrespectful behavior (which I recognize I shouldn't do anyway but I'm human, I lose it from time to time, just like everyone else). I had to drag myself up and make meals each meal instead of throwing some cereal and fruit at the kids and calling it dinner. I had to drag my butt out of bed each morning instead of leaving them to fend for themselves while I manged to wake up and get functional without the benefit of caffeine. I had to worry about keeping myself fairly well clothed out of deference to his level of modesty, as I'm unsure how my cousin and her husband treat the subject of nudity in their house and didn't want to cause any trauma. I had to be "ON" when he got homesick a couple of nights and I had to determine how best to handle that so I didn't make him feel worse (a hug, a drink of water, and a story worked wonders. Plus a phone call to his parents and his grandmother). Both days he woke up the next morning and told me how much better he felt, which of course made me feel good. It was worth the work.

As hard as it was, though, I made it through and all the kids had fun, which was what I wanted. We can't wait for him to come again, or even any of our other friends or relatives. My husband just has to keep his engine intact during that week. Now? I'm going to go sleep for a week.

Original DC Metro Moms post. When she's not entertaining extra kids or sleeping off the aftereffects, FishyGirl/Mary blogs at The Fish Pond.