This morning found me running late, and we pushed past the time where we could have walked and made it. Loading the kids in the car, I handed my daughter a mini-pack of tissue for her coat pocket. She launched into a story about a mean kid in her class who stole the last pack I had given her and had tossed it over a fence.

My son jutted his chin out, and in his Elmer Fudd sincere voice said: "When I'm in Kindergarten with you, I will talk to that kid and tell him to leave you alone. Then I will scare him really bad. We kids will look out for each other, I promise." It was so adorable - especially since he was saying "Weave you awone" and "willy bad" and "pwomise." I must be doing something right, right?

After a dinner of turkey sloppy joes, which were summarily rejected for containing visible green and red items that were not on the official list, I put the kids into a shower.

Yeah, I'm lazy like that.

I sat outside the stall and passed in the shampoo, and watched three wee people duke it out over who was standing in the spray. They took turns drawing pictures in the steamy glass (okay, it is probably soap scum, but I command you to shush! Speak not of my scum.) Their pictures looked like those giant figures in Peru. Very abstract until you got far enough away to say "Hel-lo, that's a monkey. Yup. Yes. Monkey, indeed."

Wow, I just solved a mystery. The Peruvian giant drawings? Done by giant toddlers. Case closed.

Anyway, after the shower dissolved into a echoing chamber of bloody screeching hell-fest, I wrapped the kids in fluffy towels and paraded them out to the living room, where I lotioned and pajamaed and brushed hair. Well, the older two went down like that. The two year old?

*cue the old west fiddles and whip cracking sound effects*
That was more like a rodeo hog-tying event. She burst out of the chute and started bucking for all she was worth. I got the arms into the sleeper, but she threw me off. We went around the arena at full gallop before I finally got an ankle, and then she went down with a feral scream. I pinned her with an elbow and caught a flailing heel to the chin before I got her diaper on.

She did a quick roll, but I managed to stuff her feet into her jammies and zipped her up with a flourish. I hopped to my feet as she lay looking up at me and pulled off my ten-gallon hat to wave at the crowd.

I so deserve a big shiny belt buckle.

After a few books (all Halloween themed, just because) I took the youngest into her bed and tucked her in with her Fisher Price Magnet-In-The-Butt-But-Still-Piddles-Every-Damn-Place Doll and returned to the living room to round up the rest of them doggies.

As I marched my son back to the bedroom he shares with the youngest, I heard the sound of the baby singing "Moon, moon, moon" (Laurie Berkner, again) and paused in the hall to listen to her tiny but earnest voice. I poked my head around the corner and was treated to the sight of my girl, laying on her back, swishing her dolly around over her head while crooning to it.

My son rested his forehead on my side and together we watched as that silly baby of mine serenaded her own baby, chubby cheeks working hard to form the words, square feet moving in counterpoint under her blanket. As the song ended, she gave the doll a kiss and rolled to her side.

My son was compelled to plant a kiss on the damp curls at the nape of her neck before he would climb into his own bed and snuggle in.

I am so blessed.