Please give me patience...or at least just a break

I love my kids, a lot. I am truly grateful that they are in my life. Each of them are truly sweet little spirits who bring great joy into our house. And I am so blessed to be able to be home with them each day. But...they are driving me crazy right now! The girls aren't walking yet but they cruise along furniture, can crawl like nobody's business, and are into absolutely everything! I'm glad that they are curious and are just trying to figure out their world, but holy cow they won't stop getting into things. With Porter it was not like this at all. When I would teach him to stay away from certain things he would listen. At first Simone even used to be like that. But now her curiosity wins out and she just absolutely must touch whatever is in her eyesight. Maybe it's because with Porter I just had one little person to focus on. But I try to stay on top of things and stay calm when disciplining, but holy crap I only have two hands. And the girls keep stealing toys from each other, which just comes with the territory, but Simone cries over every little thing. If it gets to a certain point Scarlet does too. Then I have Porter who keeps taking things away from the girls and I tell him not to and take the toy away from him, so I end up with three crying kids. This happens all the time!

On the subject of Porter, he is a good kid and such a sweet boy, but he is at that phase where he just constantly talks back and tries to challenge authority. I know it's just the age, but oh my goodness he tries my patience. And any time we lovingly discipline him he just says either "Well then I will never..." or "I don't ever want..." blah blah blah, like we are totally depriving him of something. He totally tries to guilt trip us in to giving in, which we absolutely never want to do because then that just opens up another can of worms. But I remember doing that as a kid too. Why do we do those things? It's so annoying. And I know he needs to get outside and see new things and get his energy out every day, but the girls need their naps and if they don't get it then they just whine all day and I know they need to sleep. It's a double edged sword. When the girls are down to one nap then things will be a little easier. And I try to do fun activities, crafts, reading time, etc. with him every day, but I know he needs to get out more, which is definitely hard in the winter anyway.

I need a break. That's what I want for Christmas. An entire day to do whatever the heck I want without any interruption. Ha, like that will ever happen! My days consist of making a meal, cleaning a meal, housework, changing diapers, wiping noses, breaking up fights, repeat, you get the picture. It's never ending!! It's like when I was in school and I always had homework hanging over my head - there's always something I need to be doing around the house or for someone. The stuff I want to do for myself just falls to the bottom of the list. And with the challenges we are having with an almost 4 year old and 2 one year olds really make me rethink if I want to have more kids or not. I had always wanted 4 kids because it was a nice even number, but 3 is hard enough. I'm not a fan of being pregnant anyway, and I like my sleep so going through the newborn stage again doesn't sound appealing right now. And doing all that while I have 3 other kids to tend to doesn't sound like my cup of tea, at least not any time soon. So we'll see.

Man, am I whining or what? Hey, I had to get it out. I'm not a very patient person so apparently I need to learn it, and quick. Plus I should look at all the pluses of life, like all the hugs and snuggles I get whenever I want them, all the giggles, play time, the fact that I basically work for myself and my family and not some jerk boss somewhere. Everything I do is for the betterment and eternal prosperity/perspective of my family. I love that. I need to focus on that. But I also need some me time. I just need to make that more of a priority too, because if mama's not happy, nobody is happy.

How can you not just want to snuggle these three little kidlets??