Working from Home

Most weekday afternoons I either close the door to my home office or head into the office to work, and Tony is left with being the sole caregiver for our three munchkins, at least for the few hours after nap time.  When I'm working at home, I can often hear the craziness and shenanigans going on from my office.  (Sometimes I have to go hide in my closet to make a phone call to a client or colleague - Maybe I'm wrong, but I think they would not appreciate the moving rendition of the ABCs playing loudly in the background as we discuss important legal matters.)  Tony never loses his cool though.  He takes it all in stride and never once complains about his difficult job. 
One day last week, I had gone into the office for the afternoon.  I came home to an empty house.  Both vehicles were accounted for.  Where was my family?  This was the sight I was greeted with coming down the road to our house:

He was single-handedly pushing all three children (in two different strollers) through our very hilly neighborhood (without a shirt on, to my neighbors' delight, I'm sure).  He's amazing!
Sometimes when I'm working from home, a straggler will get lose and break into my office when he's preoccupied with one or two of the other children.  Usually it's Caleb.  He loves to sit in my lap while I type (do you have any idea how difficult it is to type a cogent motion for summary judgment while a three year old is sitting in your lap trying to type on his own?).  Sometimes he'll go into the other office chair and say he's "working."  Daddy is usually not far behind to hurry him back to whatever activity he was doing. 
The other day, I heard a series of thuds approaching my office door as though someone were crawling towards it.  I turned around to find this:

 "Excuse me, ma'am.  I've come to apply for the office assistant position."

"I heard the dress code was business casual, so I even wore a bow in my hair to dress my outfit up a little." 
After an afternoon of working, I'll usually find everyone in our playroom or gym in the basement.  My favorite is when I can hear the music from the training montage from Rocky IV blaring from the speakers in the basement. As I make my way down the stairs, I can hear Caleb yelling, "...Seven...Eight...Nine...TEN!"  As I turn the corner into the playroom, I see Judson vigorously jumping in his jumper and Wren doing sumo squat jumps in her jumper.  Then I come into the gym to see the reason for Caleb's yelling out numbers at the top of his lungs:  he's doing pull ups, assisted by Daddy, of course.  Then as the music reaches its climax, they drop from the pull up bars and securely position the big exercise ball against the cable machine and start punching it like a punching bag, ending with the knock out blow to win the match!  Then comes the victory lap with arms raised triumphantly overhead!  (OK, maybe I was the one doing the victory lap at this point - I'm a sucker for that Rocky music!)  One thing is for certain:  all of our kids are going to ace the Presidential Fitness test when they get to school if they're already working on their pull ups!
While I'm technically the one "working" during these afternoons, I'm pretty sure that Tony's doing all the hard work, but he does it with pizazz and without complaining.  And I couldn't ask for a better person to be taking care of our kids when I can't be there.  I hope they inherit his creativity, his ability to go with the flow...and his love for Rocky-style workouts.