Four Days Postpartum: Tuesday

The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven!

Our comedy of errors today just shows that life never gets dull in a large family.

While Chris was making us breakfast and the piano teacher was here, music filling the house, Chris burned two of his fingers in the second degree. He needed to go to Urgent Care without kids and I couldn't stay home alone with six kids this soon postpartum. An added complication is that our housecleaner was set to come that very morning to do a "mini clean" of just the downstairs, which meant we had to clean up all our stuff (a First World problem, to be sure). Chris would have done that work, but now he couldn't.

Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome!

I kept the newborn while the 6- and 10-year-olds acted as my workers. I sat in a chair directing them here, there, and everywhere while they picked up so the housecleaner could do her job.

I sent the 4-year-old with Chris to Urgent Care because he is a fairly calm boy when alone with a parent.

I sent the 2- and 8-year-olds to the neighbor's home, the 8-year-old acting as a mother's helper to all the little kids over there.

So zany! I couldn't have imagined after past labors being out of bed organizing a housecleaning by myself (no other adult) after just four days. And I'm blessed that this is so foreign to me: Chris takes good care of me! Look how nicely he prepares meals to be sent up for me to eat in peace in the bedroom . . .

Later on Tuesday was David's first pediatrician's appointment, to which Chris drove me and he kept all the other children in the van. I walked in and promptly exploded my bottle of breast milk onto the floor of the doctor's waiting room. The adventures never end!

Mama and son, both tired

(Retroactively published to Tuesday)