Full hands

While standing in line at Target this morning with the infamous double cart--one kid trying to wriggle out, and another sitting in the basket already opening a gift meant for his cousin, I heard a familiar phrase uttered my way.

"Boy, you have your hands full. And oh! Looks like they're about to become even fuller!"

Is this just something people say because they don't know what else to say? Is it something they say because of personal experience? Is the prospect of having three children so foreign to people these days?  Are they saying it with a negative connotation? 

 I always wonder.

And I never know exactly how to answer.

Because sometimes I'd have to agree.. Like when my son was peeing in the toilet before we left the house this morning and hollers at me that his sister has just thrown his skate shoe in the toilet. I walk in to find him fishing his shoe out of the toilet and dumping pee water all over the bathroom rug while Carla goes in to grab toilet paper that hadn't yet flushed (ick, I know!). At those moments, I'd have to agree. My hands are full. 

But then we have moments where everything just clicks. 

And my hands don't feel full at all. They feel ready to tackle another newborn. 

Moments where I'm able to sit back and watch my two kids become playmates. Moments where they're each doing their own thing and out of anybody else's business. Moments where our schedule goes off without a hitch, or even better, when a hitch happens and we get through it on our best behavior. These moments are fleeting, but they do happen. 

                              

     

Life with little kids is busy. I won't lie. 

My floors aren't always clean, and sometimes I forget to change a diaper after naptime. Sometimes my dishwasher sits for a few days before being emptied. Sometimes I forget to pick up my husband's dry cleaning, when it was my only errand for the day. 

That's just life, no matter how many kids you have.

But in the grand scheme of things, my hands are full in a very GOOD way. I wouldn't have it any other way. We are excited to have another baby joining our family. I sometimes want to tell the people who tell me my hands are full (with a look of pity in their eyes) that I like it this way, and that I wish they were fuller. 

I'm not talking Duggar family full, but there's a certain almost six year old daughter I sure would've liked to make my hands one child fuller.