When they still come around

Today's Facebook status:
morning coffee: check. beautiful weather: check. Kids & friends plotting to visit each other: check. For some reason, mistreating their friends like I mistreat my own makes them want to return. I have told a few of them "I will beat you like I beat my own", and it still doesn't deter them.

We also have ample mental scarring. We're really good at it. Just ask my kids.
Their friends love it. I fuss at my kids and their friends in the same manner. I have yet to hear one of their parents complain. If they didn't like how I talk to the kids, then they will just have to forbid their kids from coming to my house. I am not running the show any differently just because their speshul snowflayke baybee's feelings might get hurt.
When you have your first child, it's an adjustment. The second wears on the adjustment nerves and poses a lot of challenges. The third one just kind of slides into the mix. After 3 kids, what's one more? I have a lot of help from the older kids, and I don't do it on my own. When the kids have friends over to visit, it's just like the "what's one more" line. Not my own, but meh, they're along for the ride. We were at the library one day and Beast had a friend with us. Said friend was poking me in the shoulder at the counter as I was checking out books, and he didn't stop when I said stop. So I looked at him and said "I. will. beat. YOU. like I beat my own". The librarian visibly stifled a smirk. I told her I have too many kids to treat their friends differently, I don't have energy for it. I'll feed you but you are likely to get asked to do some sort of housework in exchange. Sleep here? Yeah, but you're going to help mow the yard dude. Total your car and wrap it around a tree because you were drinking underage? Oh, yea, you're totally getting a few snarky remarks and getting asked "did you hit your head really hard before you drank that beer?"
A few of the kids call me "mom" or "mommy" or "mommy Trish". I don't think any of them use my last name. In kid-world that's a formality reserved for the moms who wouldn't beat you like you're one of theirs.
So the phone rang this morning, one of Beast's friends asking to come visit, and stay the night. "I don't care, but the leaves need to be raked and we're going to church tomorrow." That is another thing, if you're here on a Sunday morning, we'll take you with us to Mass. And it's ok if you don't have dress clothes. It's come-as-you-are, but keep the view of your cash & prizes covered.
I fully expect that sometime this long 3 day Presidents' Day weekend will garner the oldest child's friends rolling through here too. Meanwhile, my 8 year old wants to escape and visit her friends. She doesn't want anyone here because as she puts it "all they want to do is play with the baby!" That may change as the baby becomes an annoying little sister who horns in on her friends' visits and "steals" her friends.

I'm thankful they pick friends worthy of stealing, because it means they were a good choice.

students

I have 4 students in my household. One is in elementary school, 2 are in high school and Devildog is in college. And it's amusing sometimes when he and the boys get into conversations about math and correct each other.
The schedules however, are not so amusing. Devildog started a 3rd class last week that is a 4 hour class, once a week. The juggling and shuffling are part of the challenge and at the moment my work schedule is making it impossible for him to get homework done. The kids have to be in their rooms and not distracting him before he can focus. He hates my laptop, so he refuses to take it to the library or some other quiet, wi-fi equipped location and do homework there.

Let's add that the oldest son also moved to a different school, in conjunction with my husband going to school. Both places have new germs. As a result they brought new germs home from school, plus Clone picked up a stomach bug from a classmate that she shared with the little sister. This undoubtedly threw a huge wrench in my schedule. And by Saturday afternoon, I was coming down with something. I slept a lot Saturday afternoon and evening, and spared my fellow parishoners the germs by staying home from Mass. I hate missing church. Sunday's weather was lovely, and I aired out the house and sent the girls out to play. Mini-Human was so beside herself with excitement she was rather spastic. So, this last week of reset season is hopefully going to see the kids healthy so I can send the little to a sitter on the shorter of his schooldays (which happens to be my longest day of the week in general), so I can shorten my workdays and get back home at a humane hour so he can get started on his homework earlier.

And we haven't reached mid-terms and finals yet.

Eloping is a wonderful option

I say this with all the love in my heart for my sister-in-law and her fiance. She asked us to be in her wedding, so we could walk down the aisle together like we would have if we'd gone with the traditional fiesta instead of the courthouse jaunt we took on a Friday afternoon, as the fans for a certain major football rivalry rolled into town. It's become a bit challenging for me to make things work and scheduling has become an issue for me personally. The bachelorette weekend is next weekend and I am not sure that I can make the trip, or the best way to get there and back. I could take the mom-bus but it's not exactly fuel efficient. I considered flying but it's cheaper to drive the mom-bus. The cheapest flight is still 2-3 times more expensive than dragging the entire household in the mom-bus. Then there's the issue of 3 tanks of gas. One to get there, one to return, and one to replenish so I can get to work the next week. $3x24= $72/tank of gas. Times 3=$216. I can take a train for half that. The issue then becomes someone picking me up and dropping me off at both ends of the trip. Devildog doesn't want me taking the train because the stations are in crummy neighborhoods. But, if I took the train, I could knit on this sweater that I cast on back in May of last year. And it would be less expensive than driving the mom-bus. And I wouldn't have to uninstall and reinstall the car seat.
I realize this may seem minor to many but for me, the part time employed wife of an unemployed student with four kids - this is a big deal. I would like to get to know these other ladies a bit. I just feel like all my options are less than ideal. It's complicated by my workload that has a specific window to be completed. Reset season is often a bane to my sanity. Even still I love my job. I don't envy my boss.

All of THIS stuff further cements my gratitude that we just eloped and skipped the hassle, not to mention the familial drama. And I think we are better for the simplicity of it. I think having an audience would have detracted from the us of it. Our simple start is all we needed and anything grander would have been wasteful and problematic.