Dear God,

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Are you there? It’s me, Crystal.

Are you listening?

Of course you are. Why would I ask that?

Can you hear me? My small little voice down below.

Of course you can. I should know that.

I really need to talk. Like, right now. This very minute. You gotta sec?

I know the answer… of course you have have a ‘sec’.

Sometimes, there are ‘those’ days. The ones I am sure I will smile about when my children are grown and we are empty-nesters. Those moments that leave me delirious and dizzy. The ones where I raise my voice and question every parental choice I have ever made. The moments that generally end with a phone call to my mother, letting her know it took me until I was an adult to understand the true value of her work.

Who in their right mind has THIS many children? Willingly? Tell me, who? We should start a support group. Give them my email address, would you?

Some days, I am not sure how I will get through. And really, I suppose in retrospect, it really is just all very silly. It is all something I should just shrug my shoulders and laugh about. But it is just not always that easy, as screaming at the top of my lungs feels better than shrugging, or laughing, or turning the other way.

Screaming at the top of my lungs is just what I need some days. You know that. You see it from way way up there.

I’ve had one of ‘those days’ recently. It all started as I diligently tried to mop my kitchen floor that was so dirty I did not dare to walk on it barefoot and I surely did not want the baby to crawl on it. A sticky spot here and a very unidentifiable spot there. It happens over night you know. Yucky nasty kitchen floors. Of course you know, you’re God. You know and see everything.

I had made my Pine-sol water and I’m mopping away, when I smell a very familiar smell. The one that is so common around here and easily over powers the very clean scent of Pine-sol. The smell of a poopy diaper. God, is it bad to talk to you about poop?

I stop what I am doing and change the little munchkin as he will rash easily and he generally is a mess of an explosion when he poops.

As I change him I am drawn to the sound of mischievous silence in the twins room as I am searching for more baby wipes. You know the silent sound. The one where little boys do things they should not do, so they do these things very very quietly.

I walk into a quiet room with my little Luke using my brand-new-less-than-24-hours-old-almay-cream-foundation-that-i-scored-on-clearance in his hand smearing it all over his riding horsey. I wanted to choke him.

Is that bad to say? You know I would never ever choke him. I love him, but what in the world posses a children to do such a thing?

I remained calm. I handed him a container of baby wipes and I told him he needed to clean the horse up immediately.

While Luke worked to clean that up, I found another handy container of baby wipes and continued to change Matthew.

Once I was done I went back to check on Luke’s progress with cleaning up the riding horsey and about that time I hear splashing coming from the kitchen. No, oh please, no!

Yap. Matthew is in the mop water. That can not be safe. After washing his hands I take him to the bedroom to change his now wet clothes and sweet little Nicky comes to find me. He sweetly says in his raspy little voice ‘Momma, don’t worry, I cleaned it up for you.’

I thought, what a precious child. I thanked him and headed back to the kitchen to toss the dirty diaper and I almost slipped and broke my neck on the flood of mop water that soaked the kitchen- about two inches thick. Just about every last drop of water that was in the bucket was on the floor and quickly spreading to every corner of the kitchen.

‘Look Momma, am I a good boy? I cleaned for you!’ (Nicky’s love language is words of praise in case you were wondering.)

This is the moment where I needed a meltdown. This is the moment I wanted to cry.

I grabbed a towel to clean it up. Surely this is the end. Crazy things happen in groups of three. Or is that speeding tickets, I can not remember.

I called my mom. I needed to complain.

I needed to cry.

I needed words of encouragement.

And, I really just needed someone to laugh at me. Could things really be that bad?

I call to beg once again for her to lift the curse she has placed on me. The one she said out loud when I was about eight years old and giving her grief. The one where she told me that someday my children would be 10 times worse than me.

As I tell my mother about the tripartite of turmoil I can hear giggling coming from the kitchen. I see two little boys, formerly known as mop-boy and make-up-all-over-his-horse-boy, rummaging in the refrigerator.

I quickly end the call to my mother.

God, do you know what they were doing? The two of them? In their room? Of course you know, but for grins I am going to tell you again anyway.

Here they are in their bedroom, where they have quickly run off to, and there are two cracked eggs in their bedroom floor with an open container of smeared apple sauce all mingled together very well. (They love to smear can you tell?)

Does this remind you at all of the day of egg-cracking-fun when they were two years old? Yeah, me too.

God, do other kids do this kind of stuff?

Should I have them checked for a severe case of mischievous syndrome?

Are other mom’s pulling their hair out like me?

Are they, God?

Do you get many letter from moms, like me?

Please send me strength. I have 17 more years of this.

Oh what joy.

And could you do me one favor? Just one more?

When people come to visit and see my dirty kitchen floor, and the scribblings on the walls, and the fragrance of uncertainty, let them know I tried to clean. I really tried, it just did not work out for me.

‘I am not afraid of storms, for I’m learning how to sail my ship.’

-Louisa May Alcott