Guess what?

At this very moment, 5:50 pm, my girls are in the bathtub and Joshey is bouncing away in his jumperoo hooked to the bathroom door frame, being entertained by the antics of his older sisters. Which means that I have a minute to do my Happy Birthday Gabrielle post. Which is highly unusual, since this is usually the most chaotic time of the day. Which brings me to the following observation:

With all due respect to my wonderful husband, I actually handle evenings better when he is not around. He's in Utah right now at Ashlee's wedding, so it's Mommy and the Kids until Sunday morning, when I'll wake up with him next to me. Last night I was kind of psyching myself up for it, promising myself a trip to Blockbuster and ice cream, that sort of thing. But now I'm remembering something that I learned during the many late nights he had in the lab: I actually have the routine down quite well, and when there's not another adult around to complain to or to expect help from, I can execute the whole dinner-clean-up-bedtime with, dare I say, professional aplomb. But if Dave is around, I'm either grumpy because he's not helping in the way I think he should, or I'm overdramatic because I'm trying to impress upon him how hard I have it.

Now that said, I would still rather have my husband around in the evenings. And my girls certainly do, too. Daddy tells much more interesting scary stories than I do. But when I'm being totally honest with myself, life with these little rascals, even at 5:59 pm, is pretty great.

PS Ha! In the time it took me to upload this photo (from a couple of months ago), Cici inadvertently pulled up the shower knob, Polly leaped to the back of the tub, splashing Joshey in the process, Cici started squealing in terror, and the whole bathroom was in an uproar. Remind me never to use the words "professional aplomb" in reference to my mothering skills again...