I almost posted a blog post yesterday - almost. I was so frazzled and insanely tired it would have been nothing but a string of complaints. I would have told you all about how I got NO sleep because the twins decided they wanted to party like rock stars into the wee hours of the morning...right up to the moment their brother and sister (my toddlers who actually sleep through the night!) woke up. Then I would have complained about the fact that my 3 year-old (soon to be 4 year-old) son was out of control yesterday. He cried and screamed. He threw tantrums over nothing - seriously...nothing I could do would make him calm down. After complaining about my eldest son, I would have gone into a long and boring explanation about my daughter's personal issues. Basically, she's having trouble going poop. Yes, I said poop. Come on...it's a mom blog - don't they all mention poop at some point? My daughter has had problems with this for almost a year now - and when she doesn't go for a few days she gets miserable. Yesterday was that day.

So, it was everything all at once and I was too tired to deal with it. At one point I was standing in the middle of my living room while my 3 year-old sat on the couch screaming and crying. My 2 year-old was also crying (but not screaming) and my newborn was whining because he needed changed and fed. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and counted to 10. I reminded myself that I could do this - I had to do this because no one else was here to do it anyway. I picked up the newborn and changed him. By the time I started feeding him, my toddlers had stopped crying. After I finished feeding him, I moved on to his brother and changed and fed him. In about 40 minutes I had 2 happy (and well fed) babies and 2 toddlers who were actually playing nicely together. As a bonus, Danika pooped - twice. :)

I guess that kind of proves that I can do this. Obviously, it isn't going to be easy all the time. But it'll be worth it in the end.

Last night we actually got a little sleep. It was wonderful. Even though my babies did wake up every 3 hours to eat, they slept for 3 hours at a time and I did, too. Even though my daughter was up in my room 3 or 4 times and my husband and I had to carry her back into her room and put her back to bed - she never cried. Once she even looked at me with her big brown eyes and said, "Mommy, you lay down with me in my bed. Just for a little bit." It was so sweet I had to. My little Dean actually laughed out loud in his sleep while I was holding him, too. It was perhaps the sweetest sound I've ever heard - and it made the previous day's problems melt away.

I was quite pleased with myself that I was able to really see how wonderful and beautiful my children are after such a trying night/morning/afternoon. I was happy that I did keep it together. I know I didn't have much of a choice, but I also know I could have done a lot worse than I did.

I'm sure this isn't the last time I will be closing my eyes and counting to 10. I'm sure it's not the last time I will feel overwhelmed and tired. I'm also sure that I will get by - I will survive. :) It's a great feeling to know that I'll be okay...not that I ever really thought otherwise, but it's nice to have the reassurance.