The Busily Quivering Arrows in my Quiver

If children are the arrows in my quiver, mine make my quiver tired and want to sit down for a while.

So here is the never-ending refrain around this house:

Gabriel, be careful!! You are going to fall and hurt yourself!! Gabriel, you are going to hurt the baby! Gabriel, the baby is not a drum! Gabriel, stop that! Gabriel, no more running. Ok, no more football right now, it's time to calm down. Oh, Gabe...you can not kiss the baby, you are sick - Gabe!! You can't stand over the baby and cough directly into his face, either, although you have no concept of this... (bury face in hands and sigh deeply)

Seriously. The combination of these two wear you OUT!!! Gabe is a dear boy and a sweetheart, but he needs some good active playtime outside, and the way Tim and my schedules have been crossing, this simply is not happening enough. And he loves his baby brother. This morning, he was hovering over Israel who was in the bouncer and saying "Awww baby! I love you baby! Gabriel give the baby kisses!" It's very sweet, but the problem is that his current kisses are excessively germ-filled. Then this evening, when Israel was again in his bouncer outside the bathroom door as I scrubbed the floor (I'm getting stuff done around here, FINALLY!!!), Gabe had to hustle off to get his new handy-dandy tool box from Grandma and Granddaddy Beery that has all sorts of cool little boy tools, and bring it back so that he could use his tools to drum on the bouncer and on his box and of course, on the baby.... Not hard, but the problem is that he can get really worked up with all his "deet-deet-deet"-ing and his "dot-dot-dot"-ing and his "BISH!!!" (that is the cymbal, for anyone who has not witnessed this activity), so he must be watched very carefully.

At the end of the day, I seriously feel like I have run a marathon and can just collapse in a chair and huff and puff once they are FINALLY in bed. And I only have TWO CHILDREN. TWO.

I guess I better go rest up for tommorrow. The other night Tim said "Hey Carrie! You want to go to Barnes and Noble and browse slowly through the books and take our time and get coffee? Or do you want to go to Sam's Club not because we need to, but just to look around and eat samples? Or do you want to go out to eat and have a nice long relaxing dinner?" And we both chortled merrily (with a faint twinge of wistfulness) at the lucridity of that question and the sheer impossibility of ANYTHING REMOTELY like that happening anytime soon. Kids certainly change things. For the better, overall, but sometimes you just gotta miss relaxing. And just think. Lord willing, there could be another one coming along in a few months. Just kidding. :) Give me a few hundred months or so. And then there will be three. Heavy silence. Let us all pray.