We lead a crazy life. With four kids under the age of six, we have a lot of hands to hold, songs to sing, butts to wipe, mouths to feed, and noses to clean. When we get your invitation to a Halloween party that doesn’t start until 7 p.m. or a Christmas cookie swap in the middle of our two year old’s nap time we have to politely decline.

Sometimes we can “upset our apple cart” and keep the kids out later, or rally through nap time and deal with the cranky toddler later. On occasion you will see half of our parent duo at your party. This means that the parent that came to your party is like Cinderella waiting for the clock to strike midnight (or other designated time) to be home since the other half is at home with the kids.

If you’re the parent that got to go to the party you just hope that you don’t see the smoke signals or get the SOS via SMS text and have to cut your night short and rush home to make sure your home hasn’t been completely taken over by the minions that live there.

On rare occasions our amazing family will babysit the kids for us so we can both attend your shindig and even stay late! We’re so blessed to have them available to do so. In the event that they’re not available, we’re not sure that we can have just anyone take care of our brood.

It’s nothing personal, it’s just chaos and we don’t want to put that on just anyone. Our oldest has autism and craves routine and needs someone to lay with him at night, which you can’t do if you have three other kids to tend to. Our second child is mostly potty trained, so if there is an accident you have to make sure she’s changed and/or bathed, if appropriate. Our third child climbs on everything like he has suction cups on his hands. He’s like a freaking spider monkey, so don’t take your eyes off him or I promise you he will be on the stove trying to make his own scrambled eggs. Oh, and he also likes to make a break for the door sometimes, so you’ll need to make sure that all doors are locked and that his siblings don’t open the door for him at any point in time. Finally, our youngest eats about every 4-5 hours from a bottle and a spoon. Both of which you have to do for him since he’s still working on his feeding abilities.

Any volunteers to come watch our zoo? Yeah… didn’t think so. We get it! They give the best snuggles and are fun to be around, but they’re a ton of work too.

Still, this doesn’t mean that we don’t want to see you. It doesn’t mean that after five times of declining that you might get us on the sixth invitation. It’s just our life right now, but it won’t be this life forever. We want to be invited and we want to have adult time. Trust us, we need to be saved from our children. We want to converse with humans that were not made by us.

We dream about being able to leave our kids with a babysitter that’s not related to us and feel confident that we can go out further than the movies and local restaurant. That day is just not today, but someday it will be. Rest assured we will be at your party with bells on… or appropriate ugly sweater, themed costume, or any other required attire! So keep those invites coming, we’ll see you on the other side of chaos.