With three kids with varying abilities and attention spans, it’s not easy to keep everyone engaged, stimulated and entertained simultaneously. Five-year-olds can be reasoned with, but infants are not known for their patience and understandings. Nor three-year-olds for that matter. As on top of things as I’ve felt during the days when it’s just Dana and I, the weekends with all five of us have felt a little crazy. That started to change this weekend.

Up until this point we had largely been trading off: one parent with the baby, the other with the older two. As the sole food source for the baby, I’m typically on baby duty while Domingo manages the girls but that only lasts so long before the girls start getting antsy for some mommy time of their own. Antsy often leads to attention seeking and misbehaving. Compounding the problem is the fact that none of the girls like hearing each other cry. Dana, especially, ratchets up the decibels to an unprecedented level whenever she hears her big sisters’ cry. (There is no way this kid is suited for daycare!) Weekends have felt a bit like trial by fire.

This afternoon I was sitting next to Dana in her gym, tickling Alexis under her chin as she lay across my lap. Nicole was besides us, working on one of her new puzzles, interrupted by the occasional Mr. Tickle Finger. I was watching all three girls myself, without any electronic crutches, while Domingo was simultaneously clearing the table from snack and setting up a new art project, and no one was bouncing off the walls.

This weekend we did sight words, homework and math exercises. It was almost like we have five and a half years of parenting experience under our belts!

I’m still sometimes a little intimidated at the prospect of watching all three simultaneously, but it’s nice to have weekends like these which go so smoothly and to start building some confidence. Domingo’s got a number of work trips queuing up for this summer. I need to go from feeling confident two-on-three, to feeling confident one-on-three. We’re getting there.

Posted in Family Life