the hooligans, sweet baby, and wise women

lately everywhere i go the hooligans erupt with a new wildness in their hearts. i don't know if it's just silliness at a new level, like they know my mind and hands are too full to require order.
i think i might have become "that mother" in the grocery store.
lucy in the sling gazes sweetly into my eyes while her brothers run circles around me as i try to pick through the crappy winter produce at wal-mart.

i just give a little sigh, tune the chaos out and pray they aren't driving the people crazy around us. they look happy though, they laugh loudly, they aren't annoyed when they finally get into trouble. they just become even more bonded by the height of the fun and the depth of the punishment, the hooligans are in it together- rain or shine. i vascillate between being completely annoyed and secretly delighted by their fun and deep love for each other.

lucy is happy to be close, nothing much rattles her. she smiles only for her big brother and papa.
she sleeps so deeply, so deeply i have worried if she can hear at all. she sleeps through hockey games, parades, loud whoops and hollering. my postpartum dramatic self has been watching mr. holland's opus and researching deaf schools on the internet. my dear husband continues to assure me that she turns her head to follow my voice in a room, he is a good man...

this is life with three...i understand the other mothers who say it was the third that drove them over the edge. no one is particularly hard but collectively it seems MUCH more than two ever did.
this is the time when i crave wise women. the kind that smile when you tell them what your day is like. they remember those days and know that somehow it works out. the hooligans turn out to be adult men that do not run circles in the grocery stores, that little girls grow up and go to rock concerts to lose their hearing, and young mothers will someday grow old and smile when they see a harried woman in sweats and a sling carrying her baby with 2 little boys following behind...