Controlled Chaos

Do you remember the movie Parenthood? Steve Martin, Jason Robards, along with several other well-known actors. This is one of my favorite movies at the moment. If you haven’t seen it and you have children, or just have family for that matter, I would recommend it. The first ten minutes of the movie crack me up! I have seen it several times; it never gets old.

Towards the end of the movie, the great-grandmother in the story shares a metaphorical tale with her grandson (Steve Martin) and his wife about the roller coaster. To sum it up, basically she lets them know that life is a roller coaster, full of unexpected highs and lows, and to really get the most of out of it, you just have to hang on and enjoy the ride. I’m like the wife, I LIKE the roller coaster. Nathan is like Steve Martin; the roller coaster stresses him out, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Nathan likes to refer to our roller coaster as “controlled chaos.” We are very lucky to have a large group of friends that are all in various stages of parenting themselves. There are some that have many children and are old pros at it, there are some that are brand spanking new and doing beautifully, and then there are those of us in the middle, not new, not old, but holding our own pretty well I would say. All of us no matter the stage, are constantly learning about, growing into, and loving this parenting role.

The first time Nathan coined his term “controlled chaos” we were at the zoo. It was our first official outing with both children after having been on lock down for six straight weeks following Brenna’s birth. (She had RSV when she was a week old and after eight days in the hospital we were under strict orders to stay in, and not let others come around until she was fully recovered) I was THRILLED to get out of the house. I am typically a home body, I never mind spending an entire weekend at home without leaving, but six weeks was pushing it, even for me. So we joined our friends Mike and Rachel with their kids Andrew, George, and Carli Grace, and Ben and Bridget with their kids Benny, Jake, Danny, and Tucker, and a friend of Ben and Bridget’s, Kathy. So we were automatically outnumbered – 9 kids to 7 adults, but two of them were babies so that leveled the odds a little. We left the day at the zoo (and the lunch at O’Charley’s afterwards) with several new lessons learned.

• Lesson number one - no three-year-old of ours was going to sit in her stroller while all the other kids got to walk. Nathan's instincts told him this was ok as she would just follow the rest of the kids…wrong. Meet our little Miss Independent as she dashes away any chance she gets. Several instances of him chasing her around in a crouched positions like Bill Cosby “come here, come here, come here!” She was instructed to hold his hand at all times.


• Lesson number two - NEVER leave your carrier at home, ALWAYS have it with you. (note my profile picture from our next trip to the zoo) - no matter how young they are, it seems our children refuse to be bound by their stroller, so I ended up carrying Brenna…the entire day (have I mentioned she is in the 95th percentile for her weight?).


• Lesson number three – when one child has to go potty – they all have to go potty, or maybe they just think they do until they get there.


• Lesson number four - race the more experienced parents to the inconvenient location at the dinner table that makes them incapable of taking the kids to the bathroom during the many, many "potty" calls.


• Lesson number five - rest up for such occasions.

All in all it was a great trip. Several get-togethers and birthday parties later, we are a little less overwhelmed by the chaos, and are loving the roller coaster even more.