"What is life like with 3 kids under 5?" - the google search that gave me no answers to a question I didn't need to ask.

Before we went for a 3rd kid I spent a lot of time googling "What is life like with 3 under 5?" and reading stories and blogs.  Most people seemed to be stay at home moms, or worked part time.  Most were also writing when their youngest was 2+ years old.  Every article or blog generally commented on craziness and chaos.  I distinctly remember one blogger writing "someone is always awake"

I'm not going to write some "What it's actually like!" post because if you want that experience just come stay at my house for a day or two.  

But I often think of the "someone is always awake" post.  Now that the twins are 9 months old, someone is definitely not always awake.  In fact, between 7:30pm and 5:30am, everyone under the age of 6 is generally asleep. From 10pm to 5am everyone is generally asleep.  The good thing is I don't get to choose a slightly later bedtime for myself and catch up on the other side (like I did when I was younger).  I just get to play around with how much sleep I actually need.  I'm thinking that in consecutive sleep I need just north of 7 hours.  I don't really need 8 hours.  I do very poorly on less than 6 hours.

As much as the phrase "someone is always awake" stuck with me, I think what I mostly observe is "someone is always preparing food, eating food, or cleaning up food"

From waking up at 5 to cleaning up dinner at 7pm there are around 5-6 kid meal and snack times.  The high chairs need wiping 5-6 times.  The floor needs sweeping.  The babies can crawl now, which means if we don't clean directly after meals they will try and snack on their own floor-based off-casts.  They have mats under their high chairs which we shake outside sometimes, but the seagulls know the sound of mat shaking and it's an actual feeding frenzy.  When we ate outside you could see the birds gathering on the garage roof.. watching.

Once a seagull started pecking at the dining room door after breakfast, I guess asking me to hurry up and clean?

On days where I have all 4 kids (which I still maintain is impossible, and I mostly do not even attempt) I realized it's easier if I make them all a packed lunch.  I am a person who packs lunches for at home.

FYI, I still LOVE our Planet Box Lunch boxes, as does everyone else I meet.

Earlier this week I took Isaac and the babies out with my dad.  We decided to go to a family friendly art gallery and cafe.  There was no parking.  With twins, parking is necessary.  I drove to the museum instead.  The museum was fun.  The museum cafe was terrible.  We visited a second cafe.  The second cafe did not have any high chairs.  We drove past a third cafe, which didn't have any parking, but did have high chairs.  We finally went to the cafe which had parking and high chairs, the same cafe we ate lunch at on Tuesday.  

Even when not packing and thinking about lunches I seem to spend my time thinking about cafes that have parking and high chairs.  Also, they have to have enough high chairs.  There's. a lovely family run italian cafe near us with two high chairs.  There's an awkward look when I walk in with twins and spot a baby in one of the high chairs. 

One high chair, for the purpose of cafe lunches with twins, is no high chairs.

It's 6:30am.  It's breakfast time.  What's breakfast like with four kids 5 and under?  Chaos.

Nora (top) and Audrey (bottom) enjoying some pasta