Daddy's role

It is often said that family time is sacred time.  Well, that family time did not feel so sacred tonight.  I don't know how Nichole does it, or any other mom for that matter.  Everything started out okay with me getting home early, around 4ish, so Nichole could go to her doctor appointment.  It all went downhill from there, or uphill depending on the perspective.  It starts off by getting Eli handed off to me.  No big deal, right?  Well, that little bugger did not want to settle down for the next 4 hours.  I'd hold him, he cried.  I burped him, he cried.  I laid him down, he'd cry even more.  I feed him, then he cries again within a couple minutes.  I change his diaper and he's okay for a few minutes.  But, then it starts all over again.  4 hours of this.  I realize this is the way he communicates, but I was about to go nuts, even trying to remain positive.  No matter what I did, it did not work.  On top of that, I had to take Ethan to basketball practice.  That was actually nice, because he did settle down a little bit for the drive.  But, as soon as we got home, he woke up again and back at it.  Then, I make a dinner, I guess better said, I reheated the dinner from last night (with a crying baby) for Brad, Jake and Ava who eat like hardly any of it.  While Eli is fussy, I try to help Brad with his homework, who by this time, cannot focus and is dragging the work out.  I'm going insane watching him do this homework that should seriously take like a couple minutes and drag it into hours of work.  Ava's constantly changing her clothes with a friend and then somehow ends up in the other girl's underwear.  Like, what are those girls up to...seriously?!  Not to mention the tornado that ripped through the house with the kids leaving all their stuff everywhere amongst the spilled cocoa pebbles when Ava accidentally picks up the wrong side of the bag.  Wow, how do mom's do it??  I love these kids, but wow, they're a lot of work.  It sure is humbling to do the role reversal.  It was literally therapeutic to let the kids watch tv after mom got back while I just cleaned up the tornado without the beloved's (or devil's)  help