First off, if you’ve never had a sibling photo bomb your picture by giving you horns or finger-ears or some such, then you haven’t really lived. Millie is just making sure A4 has a proper childhood here. That is all.

And in this photo, you see the four kids I took with me yesterday to the opening of the Century Chest at First Lutheran Church. You can imagine what a life-changing event it was for the boys. *groan* But as I can’t leave them at home and I wanted to go, they had to come with me.

Yesterday wasn’t one of our best family days. The dry cleaner lost 4 of Craig’s shirts and half-heartedly offered store credit as an apology. I became super discouraged upon hearing that several attempts for respite care for the boys for this weekend have fallen through. The girls left all of their piano books at home and we didn’t discover that until we arrived at the teacher’s house. The boys refused to take naps yesterday. Millie accidentally threw the final draft of her writing assignment in the kitchen trash and we didn’t find that for…a while…And the list goes on. I actually have three massage gift certificates in my possession that I keep “saving for when I really need it” and I can’t prove it, but I think maybe I should have cashed one or three of those in yesterday.

With a race to the finish line of an 8pm bedtime for the boys, it was a huge relief to say, “Boys…good night.” And as I was walking down the stairs the potential for human whack-a-mole began when I heard A4 call out, “Mommy!” I paused, quietly. Then again, “Moooommmmyyyyy!” I turned and said, “What do you need?” He insisted I come back into his room. I’m not proud of this, but I sighed with frustration as I turned around to walk back up the stairs and head back into his room. I got in there and said again, “A4, what do you need?” And his reply? “I love you so so much!”

This, the kid who always answers with, “Okay,” when I tell him that.

And, of course, I melted when I heard that. I climbed up the side of his ladder and said, “Oh, thanks, Buddy! Did you know that if you said that to me it would make me give you a big fat kiss on your forehead?” He grinned and nodded.

And I said good-night again and we called it a day. Because that’s what families do.