3 kids is harder than 2

We are still adjusting to having three kids in our house. For the first two weeks, the boys were on their best behavior. I appreciated their perspective sooo much. When little girl was throwing a fit in the van, Clay said, "It's ok that I don't have toys on one side of my car seat because I have enough on the other side." We had to remove toys from little girl's car seat and from one side of Clay's because she can reach his toys when she gets angry and throws a fit in the van while strapped into the seat. She likes to throw things when she gets mad. She also screams very loudly which has caused her to lose part of her voice the last couple days. That is actually refreshing because she can't be as loud. When she was at her ear-piercing loudest, Jaden and I were riding in the van with her on the way to school and Jaden had perfect timing as I was trying to mentally and physically block out the screaming. I was wishing for ear plugs. My ears were actually in pain. Jaden said in between screams, "Mom, it's ok. It doesn't hurt my ears because I have my hood up." So sweet. I wish I could make the screaming stop and I wish that he didn't have to suffer through it also.

We are over three weeks into this process and last week the boys got difficult. They snapped out of their good behavior and seem to have lost track of house rules and boundaries. We are trying hard to love each of them in individual ways and figure out what they need most. Dealing with three misbehaving kids is hard and exhausting.

We celebrated little girl's 4th birthday this weekend. We had fun and again it was exhausting. For once she got away with saying, "Mine!" as much as she wanted. Her birthday presents belonged to her. The 20 balloons Bryan blew up, belonged to her. Her birthday cake was hers and she enjoyed the mine-ness for a short while.