Voyage - Day 19

Controlled Chaos, if there is a more nonsensical oxymoron, I am unaware of its existence. Yet, unbelievably, I stood in the midst of that very paradox on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. To a certain degree, motherhood is largely instinctive, I can't explain how I knew when my babies were hungry, or sleepy, or bored, I just...knew. There is no list of standard operating procedures, each child is an individual, and the tricks and techniques for governing and guiding each child is unique. That said, some things just come naturally, others, not so much. I encountered a situation for which I was completely unprepared, the solution so counter-intuitive, so insane, it was brilliant. My boys had been at each other's throats for days, the bickering was so intense I was actually considering duct-tape and gorilla glue...when my friend was unfortunately stricken with a decidedly unpleasant illness. Her two children were left with nowhere to go and nothing to do during her hospital stay...so I decided the least I could do was to entertain her babies for her. She has a boy around Ethan's age and a girl the same age as Noah. Wednesday, we went to the movies. I worked some bad juju and managed to take 6 people to the free summer movie, with popcorn, candy and soda, for $13.00. You might ask how I did that, just message me and I'll share the details. It wasn't as cool as Jesus feeding the 5000, but it was quite handy, if I do say so myself. Amazingly, the kiddos paired off, and left just Aidan for me to entertain. The addition of other, non-familiar kids made for a precipitious drop-off in the level of bickering, arguing and overall annoyance. I enjoyed it so much, that I decided to press my luck and invite said kids over to hang out on Thursday as well. We painted, we did puzzles, they Lego Rock Banded, they took a picnic lunch to the sand dunes to eat and play nerf war. It was so simple and yet genious. One would think that adding more children to a house that was already filled to capacity would create exponentially greater levels of chaos, and unbelievably, it had the opposite effect. I am thinking of adopting...