Chaos Eliminator #15 & 16

I love chaos eliminators. Anything that dims life's chaos is a good thing. Last Saturday night we were at a wedding and reception with all three of our boys. It was the 4th reception we had brought the boys to at this particular location and so they all were feeling MUCH TOO COMFORTABLE in the environment. And you KNOW that comfortability in children breeds: trouble. My children are not an exception. Ryan and I hardly knew what hit us, as we were trying to contain the boys to the room we were assigned to, prevent them from dumping the coffee creamer and sugar on the floor, keep their fingers out of the not-yet-cut cake, slam into fellow guests, and wrestle on the middle of the dance floor. The trouble was that they had nothing constructive to do while we all waited "patiently" for the food to be served. And then once the food was served, my children were done eating in approximately 8.7 seconds so the boredom was quick to return. The cutting of the cake (which they literally did laps around) was still 75 minutes away.

I, of course, had nothing to entertain them with, hardly any way to contain them, and was honestly more interested in shoving food in my own mouth than chasing them. No chaos elimination up my sleeve. (I did have a helpful husband who did his best while chatting with old college friends.)

At one point, the people we shared a table with, bless their heart, said, "They are not bad, just 'active.'" Ok, you can't fool this mama: "active" is nothing more than code words for "rambuntious" and "you should have left them at home."

It was at that moment that I felt the embarassment. There were other kids in the room doing much the same things as my kids, but that mattered little to me because I had nothing up my sleeve to prevent things from spinning further out of control. (In all fairness, they were not out of control, but I felt a serious lack of control with my big-pregnant belly and massive fatigue... pregnancy is not known to cause a woman to think more clearly, you know.)

So anyway, my chaos eliminator #15 & 16 comes out of my failure to plan on that night and it is this:

• Always, always, have a plan, and
• never, never, go to a wedding and reception with three young boys while you are in your third trimester.

How is that for helpful information?!