Today was one of those days...

We've all had days when we're at our wits end.  Nothing seems to be easy.  Everything seems to take 10 times longer than it should.  We've all been there.  The more kids you have, the worse it gets!

Hannah and Noah have been driving me crazy today.  Hannah's in that "I don't want to eat anything and I'll whine about everything" phase.  Noah loves to throw things.  Literally, everything.  So this morning when I walked out of the living room to put away some clean clothes, I returned to both kids throwing an entire 140-piece box of blocks down the stairs.  Yep, it was going to be one of those days.  (Thanks Aunt Salli for said box of blocks.  They love throwing them!)


I went to the Y for a while and had a terrible run.  My head was throbbing and my legs just didn't want to cooperate.  Then Noah cried and cried the entire car ride to pick up Hannah from preschool.  On a high note, my mom happened to have today off work so she watched them for a few hours this afternoon so I could go the chiropractor (oh yea, my back is hurting too!) and get a mani/pedi.  If only I had remembered to shave my legs...oops!  My bad.

After returning home with the kids, they continued to whine and cry about every little thing.  Joel got home from work and within a few minutes, he was thinking he'd come home to the wrong family.  Who were these children?  Who are their parents?  Oh wait.  Crap.  It's us.  :)

Joel was forced graciously offered to watch the kids for a little while so I could sit down...which, of course means checking facebook!  As I scrolled through the news feed, I noticed a link to a blog of someone going through a hard time.  I like reading blogs, so off I went.

And when reading the blog, it hit me.

My kids may drive me insane some days.  They may take me to the edge of my rope but...they are beautifully normal.  Normal.  That word is so...well...normal.  We all dream of "normal" babies and assume we're going to have one.  This blog I read was about a baby anything but normal.  The very first post was written just a few minutes prior.  The couple was in the hospital anxiously awaiting the birth of their baby.  The birth of their severely deformed baby.  He was going to be born with Trisomy 13.  This trisomy is most often fatal.  And by most often, I mean seriously...most babies either don't make it to term, are still born, or die within a few minutes of birth.  Their abnormalities are just too great for their little bodies.

I read down through past postings all the way back to when they found out the news on a routine ultrasound.  Yep, I'm an ultrasound tech.  Have I ever found something abnormal on an ultrasound?  You bet.  But it never hits home for me.  My heart may be breaking but I can't show emotion.  So as I was reading this blog, it was being updated as the mom was being wheeled into the OR to have a c-section.  The parents are praying for a miracle.  Their lives will never be the same.  Their son may beat the odds and live.  But what kind of life will he have?  The mom had previously posted that the ultrasound showed severe brain abnormalities.  Will their son be "normal"?  Without a miracle, he would not.

So as I hear my kids screaming, crying, throwing things, driving me insane, I can't help but think.  They're being "normal".  I have 2 beautifully NORMAL children and I wouldn't trade them for anything.