Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Give Thanks

Last Friday was my second day alone with all five kids. Ben had to work late so it made for a particularly long Friday night. The little boys and I had an afternoon nap. When I woke up the house was a wreck, the "big kids" had watched too much TV and I realized I had slept through Sariah's soccer lesson. Feeling rather defeated, and with a bunch of well rested kids on my hands I wondered how I'd make it through the evening (movie night was now obviously out after the extended TV viewing at nap time). After dinner (thank goodness someone from the mothers club brought dinner . . . that might have sent me over the edge!) I told the kids that if they helped clean up we'd do a craft, although I didn't yet have a craft planned. To my surprise everyone helped clean up with minimal complaining. It felt good to all work together and for the kids to contribute to the housework. When it was time for the craft project Meilani suggested some kind of elaborate letter craft that she concocted in her head (I wanted to do hand print turkeys, but that was vetoed by the peanut gallery). I reigned in her idea and thanks to google, quickly found an easy Thanksgiving banner we could all make together, and that we even had supplies for. Seth was cooperative and we all worked together, really quite merrily, on our "Give Thanks" banner. I folded the papers and drew on the letters and each kid got to glue stuff to two of the letters. Everyone cooperated, waited patiently for their turn, and was polite to one another. There wasn't even any fighting over craft supplies or who got which letter. It was really a magical moment. At the end of the night, everyone was tired and went right to sleep after we snapped a photo. I went to bed feeling like I'd conquered the world and thankful for my babies. I'm giving thanks that I could remain calm and create a night of fun and bonding with my family from what could have otherwise been an extremely overwhelming night of chaos.

2 comments:

April said...

You are such a great mom and my hero!! What a cute craft! I might have to copy that with my girls. I'm glad things turned out smoothly for you that night. I know all to well how those kind of nights can quickly turn very ugly. Way to keep it together!

Tracy T. said...

This activity and resulting photo are great! Your family is terrific and you, my dear, are a wizard. Hats off to you! Give Ben a hug from the Smiths.

Tracy Taylor
(Emery and Shepherd's mom)