All Washed Up

Just had a holy terror of a day. Two insane boys descended on our house and really USED the place. Running wild, then our kids were running wild, then every toy was used, bikes pulled out, kids looking strung out on heroin, wild with wildness, or was it just me and it was just really hot? Or was the mom that came with them just not helping? What happened?

All I know is, I'm good with my own kids. I can manage a day of not being frazzled by the end, not totally frazzled. But by the end of about two hours with these other kids, I was like hmm, I'm feeling a little stressed. An hour later, hmm, I'm feeling really exhausted. Then by the time they left, it was like, well, being in a cornfield and being picked apart by crows. I am an empty corncob of a human being. Picked clean of myself.

I've had rowdy kids over. I guess I'm used to rowdy. But something was not right - it was me. I can't do five, for nine hours. I can cook, I can clean, I can manage, I can keep kids from falling in the pool, I can be friendly, I can love, but I can get wiped out. So today wiped me out.

I realize that the key to kids and successful playdates is the parents work their asses off. It was only my ass, and my ass is tired. But it was an old friend, and I wanted to see her. So if I wanted to see her, I had to be multi-mom, robot mom, mom ALL. I'm more laid back mom. But this little kid, he was bashing everything and running everywhere and there could be head injuries. I had to be vigilant mom.

Okay, so I'm coming back down from Planet Stress. I will recover. My kids had a great time. At one point two babies were sitting on the ping pong table while we played ping pong OVER them. This, the laughter in this, was gratifying.