These years that we are in right now, these years with all small ones all around our feet, will forever be known as the Age of Coffee. The years in which my adrenal system shut down, we survived on coffee alone, chaos ensued, memories were made, babies snuggled…and blood was shed.

Again.

Charis’s chin has been healing very quickly, thanks to the most magnificent shea butter on earth. (Seriously, the stuff is amazing!  I apply it as soon as there is a good scab and the scab quickly falls off because the skin has healed so well. We’ll keep putting it on the scar and I expect to see that shrink quickly as well. I’m just sayin’… completely unrefined shea butter is a miracle worker when you live in a house where folks are always splittin’ their skin open.)

So, Brent was working. On a Friday night. Again. Arwen was spinnning joyously around the room with Mary the cat. She slipped. And then there was the scream. It sounded so familiar, just like when Charis split her chin open. But this time, I was experienced! I kept my sane-Mommy-hat on this time, thank you very much.

Arwen had split her doggone head open right at the hairline. It was just like Charis’s chin, but only about 1/3 as deep of a cut, thank goodness. I cleaned the wound like a pro. Then I found out I have a butterfly closure handicap. I called Natalie. Umm…again. (Yes, it’s okay, go ahead and laugh at me.) She was in the middle of her own crisis and advised that I shave the hair that was in my way.

It just couldn’t be avoided. Arwen’s hair line takes a bit of a dip on the left side of her head now. All those little baby hairs and a small chunk of full grown hair was preventing me from getting the butterfly closures to actually stick and hold the wound shut. (I’ll admit I briefly thought about using super glue. But can you imagine if it didn’t work?! Showing up at the emergency room and having to explain that I put SUPER GLUE in my child’s wound and now it was stuck and I couldn’t get it shut?? LOL)

So, I got my razor and explained that I was going to shave her head like I shaved my legs. She was so brave! She sat very still while I chipped away at her hairline. I also had to trim the hair that was in the area that split open. I had to take about an inch of it off, and finally the bandages stuck to her soft skin.

I calmly ignored the chaos going on behind my back while I worked with the skill of a surgeon, ya’ll. Evelyn was screaming her head off, I have no clue where Charis was, and Ezra was doing this:

The exposure is a little off, but take my word for it. The boy had taken the entirety of the last roll of toilet paper in the house and wadded it up in the toilet bowl. (We potty trained him just the day before!) See how proud he is? He pointed to it like he had done me some sort of favor.

As Evelyn continued to scream and fuss, I fished it all out with the handle of the plunger into a plastic bag.

Then I turned to whip up a quick lasagna. (First I turned on Toy Story to keep the little ones occupied because I was all out of tricks…and brain power.)

I also have a lasagna handicap. I’m not sure why, but it always takes me twice the amount of ingredients called for to complete all the layers in the recipe. I found myself having to chant to remember what I was doing. In my mind, “sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese...” Because if I didn’t chant, I couldn’t remember what in the heck I was doing in the kitchen.

It’s a good life, with all these little people. It’s insane and hectic and completely random. We know… we’re crazy! But one day it’s going to all pay off. We’ll have a house full of wonderful big kids to lend a hand and make their own mark on the world.