Chaos

It comes in two flavors around here: the flavor I can deal with, and the flavor I can't.

Lizzy and I went to the store, to pick up the things that we could not get from safeway.com today. So we needed turkey, rubber bands, and paper towels. I also got a long sleeve tee and leggings for under Lizzy's fairy costume, and a bag of DumDums to give to Trick-or-Treaters (we keep DumDums because Abby can eat them and because I won't eat handfuls of them like I will other candies in the house), and a black velvet headband with a tiny spangled witch's hat for me to wear on Halloween.

This took about twenty minutes. In that space of time, Leanna's mom arrived to take Leanna home with her (this is normally not "our weekend" but she needed a sitter so we got to have her overnight), and three neighborhood kids came over to play (the fourth regular was grounded for the first hour of playtime and the less-commonly-here kids were not here). This was chaos, but the kind I can stand. I can even write with this going on; although I am occasionally called to mediate or drink imaginary tea, I'm otherwise pretty much left alone.

At this very moment, as I type, we have a ten-year-old girl sorting stick-bomb sticks by color, three boys ranging from six to ten (one of whom is carrying a plastic scythe) and an eight-year-old girl playing "restaurant" on the porch, a four-year-old girl playing with Lego, and a nine-year-old boy singing what seems to be opera in the kids' bedroom. It's total chaos and noise, but it's the sort I can deal with. At least today I can.