The candles help

It's fall, it's raining. I love the fall. I love the leaves. I love cider, candles and turning up the heater. I do not love trying to figure out what the heck to do with the kids now that the outdoors is a wet, wet playground waiting to dampen and muddy my children and add to the ever growing piles of laundry I already loathe!
I have a hard time taking them places...Brayden is too little for most the places Gavin can go. He's too loud and rowdy for a library. Wants to follow Gavin into the playspace at McDonalds, but then gets stuck. (I once had to get Gavin out, while I was pregnant...go ahead, picture this and laugh. I swore to never go up there again.) The mall play area is a madhouse and germ infestation. Sometimes we go to the children's museum, with our pass, but it is very hard for me to keep an eye on both the kids at the same time! Brayden is quite the escape artist and his obedience level is nil when he hears "Come, here" or "Stay here".
SO...I light the candles, turn up the heat and watch my house become a playground. Toys seem to occupy much less time, when we play with them everyday and creative projects I have learned, take about 10 minutes to set up, 20 minutes to clean up and 3 minutes to do. No one seems to want to read the same books and both boys are becoming far more needy of individual attention. It's exhausting. And if I attempt to call a friend for some adult conversation or even to just make sure the same events are occuring in another house...this is when the riding toys get pulled out and I see Gavin on an inch worm and Brayden on an airplane as they fly by to race them down the hall. It is SOOO loud as they roar back and forth down the hall and SLAM into the end of the hall or each other. This is usually accompanied by squeals of laughter or shreiks of anger, because someone has blocked or slammed into someone else. At this point, I hide in the laundry room just long enough to tell my friend, I have to go and sequester said riding toys before someone gets hurt.
My patience, creativity and tolerance are all being tested during this fall season. I try to remind myself, the boy's are being tested as well. They are having to learn to better share space, share toys, be creative, and play quietly. It's a lot to learn for all of us.
In the end, I think we are learning, but man alive, it is a tiring process. The growing pains are in fact painful and the days are quite long. We'll survive though. And we will enjoy the changing leaves and apple cider along the way. Oh and we'll light lots of candles, because even if it's a false sense of calm, I think the candles help.