Never again....

Birthday parties are becoming regular occurances on Saturday mornings. Seems that as soon as we take an invite down, another goes up. This past Saturday Austin & Avery were invited to a party at the skating rink, Brenham's very own Silver Wings. They were excited to get to go back since we had only been one time before.... for a birthday party. I can't say I was quite so excited because Wes had been asked to help out a friend with roofing a house so I was solo with all 3 kids. I knew it was going to be a challenge, a challenge that I accepted, but never again.
As we walked in the front doors, Avery & Austin fought over who got to carry the present. We made it inside and went to get skates. That left me carrying Caleb who wouldn't get down and 2 pairs of skates (heavier than I remembered) across the floor to the party table. Skates went on pretty easily, but we soon found out that Austin's skates had not been tightened and left him falling on the floor with every step he took. This we figured out on the skate floor as I am holding Caleb on my left hip, have Avery holding onto my left hand and am trying to hold up Austin as best I can with my right hand. I felt sweat rolling down my forehead and I refused to look up and see how many people were looking at us thinking "she is crazy." One of the mom's did come up and try to offer to take Caleb, but he preferred to see me sweat. It seemed like it took us 30 minutes to make it a few feet to the wall, but we made it. Austin's skates went off and I got him a new pair. With the new skates, we all made it all the way around the floor once and on the second round Austin saw the games and wanted to play. I wasn't getting stuck over there - "no money" I said. "I just want to look" he said. So he and Avery took skates off and went to check them out. This is when Caleb allowed himself to be unattched from my hip and darted off to one of the race car games. Avery wanted to play the basketball game in the other corner and of course at this very time Austin needed to go to the bathroom. Agh!!! We made it past that and made it back to the table where lunch was being served. Caleb got out of my sight while I was helping A&A get settled with their food and he proceeded to start eating someone else's pizza. Oops! After eating the kids played a little and Caleb tried to run across the floor to the car game any chance he got. One time he succeeded. Needless to say, I was questioning my sanity when we dropped off our skates and headed out the door. Wes called on our way home and the first thing I said was "I'm never doing that again." I was exhausted and even more frustrated when we got home and all 3 kids were still awake. I was for sure they were going to fall asleep on the way home and then I would have a little piece and quiet. Nope! It wasn't until I loaded them up an hour later and drove the backroads to Toppe's that they fell asleep. Then I unloaded them and treated myself to a run - stress relief and a little me time. It was just one of those days!