Managing the Chaos

I remember friends describing having a second child as "chaos."  I thought naively they must be exaggerating.  After all, clearly I had mastered having one child - we had kept her alive until age two.  How much harder could it be to have another one?   Well, once child number two learned how to walk, I learned what "chaos" meant.  For the past seven months, we have felt like we are in a constant state of chaos.  Even if things are technically under control, you always feel like you are just 10 seconds away from everything spiraling downward.   

This past week, we visited some friends who have children who are ages eight and six.  (AHHHH.  What a sense of calm.)  Well, our friends offered some perspective.  From their perspective, it didn't look as chaotic as we felt it was.  So that said to me at least 25% of the chaos (maybe even 50%) is just our anticipation of chaos. To be fair, it is human nature to learn from past behavior.  But nevertheless, I decided our assignment for the next week is to loosen up - and not worry about the chaos until it occurs.  And hey - what's the worse that could happen?  As long as everyone is alive and the house hasn't burned down, we'll make it through.  And maybe our children will make it to ages eight and six and we, too, will experience the wonderful sense of calm and peace that appears to occur then.