Circus

This weekend Jeff and I watched The Wolf of Wall Street. I had picked up the book at an airport bookstore last spring and ended up reading it at an embarrassingly fast pace. Knowing that it was at least mostly autobiographical, it was both fascinating and deplorable. How could one person be so vile? And such a great writer? I was sucked in to the horror. What I wasn't quite expecting as I watched the movie was for it to seem, at least at some level, well, familiar.

Don't get me wrong. As much as I would sometimes (often, always) like to scream obscenities, I am generally pretty good, especially in front of the kiddos. In fact, a couple of weeks ago I was driving with the kids when the brakes decided not to work as I got to an intersection with cross traffic. I may have shouted an obscene word or two, and I was so surprised by my cussing, that when I mentioned it to Jeff, I shared my choice of words and didn't think to include the whole issue with our minivan not actually being a safe family vehicle. (For the record, we did finally stop, mid-intersection, and the car coming at us swerved. Phew.)

Back to the movie, then there is the drug use. Nope. It sounds nice, but in addition to the whole illegal thing and the health risks, drugs require extra money and free time. Ha! Enough said.

Gratuitous nudity. I suppose we do know that. At least once a day, the three youngest children in the family tend to streak through the house at bath time. Actually, streaking would be an improvement. It is more of a casual lounging in the nude. Especially if Wheel of Fortune is on. My little nerds are addicted, and they think nothing of heading to the bathroom, taking their clothes off before their showers, and then wandering back out to watch a puzzle or two. It's special. On the bright side, at least they don't have any body issues.

But the part of the movie that actually reminded me of our lives in the whole crazy circus atmosphere. I am pretty sure the only reason we don't have roller skating monkeys and midget tossing contests in our living room is because no one has thought of it yet. But give them time. Natalia is only three, after all.

I promise, I really try to keep things simple and calm, but then things get insane without me even trying. Take last Tuesday, for instance. I know it was going to be a little weird. This year I promised myself I would volunteer in the big kids' classrooms once a month, and it was my day to volunteer in Ree's classroom. I usually volunteer on Fridays when I work from home to minimize driving time and work interruptions. But they were desperate for a second volunteer to help with their Thanksgiving pie party. I could handle that. It meant going to work in the morning, taking a long lunch to volunteer at school, and then driving back to work. So the schedule was not perfect. But, hey, there was PIE involved! Oh, and, uh, community service with my daughter.

But things got more complicated. On Monday afternoon I found out the boys were having some Thanksgiving thing at 8:30 in the morning and they wanted me to be there. And after skipping a play in Ree's class this year because I had no idea it was a play until I got the video afterward (oops! parenting fail!), I am hesitant to skip events where my children tell me I need to attend. So here is how my day actually played out.

• It started as a regular morning. I got the big kids off to the bus, then came home and worked on my laptop on the couch while Natalia watched TV. That worked for 15-20 minutes, then she got weirded out and started climbing all over me. Among other things, she actually climbed on my head.
• We were getting ready to leave for the boys' class, and I told Natalia to go to the bathroom. When we got there, I told her to take off her pants. She did. Unfortunately, because none of my children are currently functioning well, she did not take off her panties. At least she was on the toilet when I looked over and saw her peeing all over them. I quick cleaned that up.
• We got to school. (Jeff and Natalia also joined in the fun and stopped on their way to preschool.) The boys were having a Thanksgiving feast. That's it. Just eating. We felt silly when we arrived for being there, but lots of parents were there, and the boys were happy to see us.
• Mike freaked out when we said we had to go. He started crying hysterically. Great, big tears. I calmed him down then headed to work.
• I got to work, put away my lunch and computer, and chit chatted with my coworkers. After about 15 minutes, I noticed my phone was ringing.
• I looked at my phone. I had three missed phone calls, two voice mails, and three texts. Uh oh. It turned out to just be the school nurse. Mike had an angry belly. I called her and then called Jeff to pick up Mike.
• Amazingly, I got some work stuff done. Then I got a long series of texts from Jeff. My parents' house in Wilmington was infested with ants. Not just a few ants. The entire pantry was swarming. Awesome. Jeff had Mike in tow and Jeff was recovering from the flu himself, so I told him I would take care of it after work.
• I left work again at 11:45. I took a coworker to the airport to pick up a rental car for her Thanksgiving trip and then returned to the kids' school.
• Ree's class was insane. The "play" was a poem that each kid had one line in and took less than two minutes to read. The kids had apparently all hyped it up in the same way to their parents, because the classroom was packed. (Jeff, Mike, and Natalia were also there, stopping on the way home from preschool.) There was no way I could do my official pie serving duty. It was every man, woman, and child for themselves. Thankfully, I managed to secure some good pie for my children. No sad pecan pie for them!
• As we were getting ready to leave (me to return to work, and the rest to go home), Natalia peed on the floor. Not a little. A huge, great lake. She was completely embarrassed. I was able to find a roll of Bounty paper towels and some Clorox wipes. We were good. In the meantime, Ree was running around telling everyone that her sister peed on the floor. I'm sure that was her own embarrassment, but it was not helping things. 
• At that point I noticed that Jeff not looking so great. I told him I would go home for awhile to help get Ree and Leon off the bus and get lunch for Natalia and Mike since it was already after 1:00 pm and no one had eaten anything but pie.
• I came home and did the mom thing. I gave Natalia a bath to clean her and Mike a bath to calm his belly. I made them lunch and folded laundry. I picked up the kids from the bus, let them unwind, read to them, and tucked in the three little ones for quiet time.
• Then I headed back to work. I was planning on taking care of a couple things, grabbing my laptop, and then heading to my parents' house to do some ant battles before coming home and making dinner. I got sucked into an hour long meeting that was definitely needed, but I did not get all the work stuff done I had planned. I left work at 4:45, quite a bit later than planned.
• I hit insane traffic on the way to my parents' house. Thankfully, I was able to bail at the last minute before getting stuck on a highway that was at a dead stop.

Mercifully, the rest of the day was uneventful. But, like in the movie, the circus was not just one day. The next day's circus took on a new flavor when Natalia showed up in our room, when it was dark and early, demanding to get dressed because she was ready to get up. I yelled at her. And yelled at her, and yelled at her (at least as much as one can yell when whispering). After about 10 minutes, she relented and went to bed. That's when I looked at the clock. It was 3:30 a.m.

Perhaps I should reconsider the recreational drug thing...