Parenting in the "Zone"

When people found out we were expecting our third child, a common response was a basketball analogy, "So, you're moving from man-to-man to zone." I remember having the thought that I was already playing "zone" when Erik was working as I was out numbered 2 to 1, but I have found the transition of 3-to-1 a bit more difficult. Things are just busy, busy, busy, I find myself just hustling more throughout the day to get everything done. I would say the majority of the time things seem to go really well, with only one fire to put out at a time...Anya needs to be fed, another one of Soren's melt downs, Olivia needs help making yet another paper heart, etc...I have found the craziness comes when there are multiple needs that happen simultaneously and everyone wants Mommy NOW! This is what happened to me last weekend while we were making the drive from Spring Grove to Milwaukee. Erik had caught a very aggressive form of strep throat and was running a fever of 102-103, so we decided to stop in at the walk-in clinic in LaCrosse on the way for him to get checked out. The timing for a stop was great as it was lunchtime and the kids and I headed to Fazoli's. Things in the restaurant went great. The kids sat down, had good manners, Anya was smiling in her car seat at strangers who stopped to talk to her...Wow, this was going really well. Then we entered the van....WAAAA...an explosion of cries. Anya was screaming, Soren was mad at Olivia for something. GPS to the rescue! I pushed the park feature and it showed one within a mile and a half. Perfect. I can feed Anya the older kids can play and get some wiggles out before we continue on the long drive. I quickly pulled into the parking lot where I had spotted an empty picnic table. I reached in to grab Anya and her entire backside was covered in #2, no wonder why she was so upset. After I pulled her out and made a beeline for the picnic table with a large pack of wipes to tackle this mess, I realized that I was walking through someone's graduation party, which provided a lot of onlookers to this chaos. I just smiled and continued on with giving a bath to naked, screaming Anya squirming on the changing mat on the table. I got her dressed and fed her and she was much better. During this time Olivia and Soren were running all over the park. When it was time to go I called them back to the car and Soren came back covered in mud. So, he was next on the agenda for a bath with wipes. Then Anya's car seat got a bath with wipes. Phew, finally everyone was clean, fed, and buckled in so we could go pick up Daddy and continue on with our journey.