I get up at 6am, send my husband off to work, and have breakfast with my teenagers. After helping with hair, finding misplaced assignments, and giving reminders about their afternoon schedules, etc, they run to the bus stop at 6:45am.
Since my gradeschoolers don't need to catch the bus until 8:15am, I let them sleep until 7:30am before getting them up to start the cycle over again. SO -- If I'm not so dead-tired that I fall immediately back into bed to get an extra 45 minutes of sleep, and IF we haven't made so much noise that my 2-year-old is up, I get an opportunity to take a luscious bubble bath!
SO -- to start over, here I am laying in the bathtub enjoying a great book. This book is so great, in fact, that it gets me excited about new things I can do in my life. You have to understand, I can be a bit of a perfectionist at times, so I'm always looking for ways to make my home, family, and myself better. So as I'm reading along, I get so excited that I decide to get out of the bathtub early and get going on my new ideas!
Wow, this will be SO GREAT! I can visualize it already, a cleaner home, smiling faces, a newly-excited-and-refreshed-me that can conquer anything!
So I get dressed, pick up all the towels neatly, straighten the bathroom, (see, I'm doing better already!) and head to the kitchen with a bath towel on my head. I ring the stairway-mounted bell to get the two graderschoolers up and going, intending to get back to the bedroom in a few minutes to damp-dry and comb my hair.
One thing leads to another, and my new plan begins to get sabotaged. Here's how my morning went:
- Greet 8yo son good morning, check that he smells good, insist he put on his underwear which he's been refusing to wear lately, then help him find tennis shoes for P.E. today.
- I notice that the teenage girls left the flat-iron on, so I call my 10yo daughter in to flatten her hair before I turn it off.
- Next, I get 5yo daughter and 2yo son into the bathtub, since it's cooled down after my bath to be just right temperature. I wisely move all the shampoo bottles up high to avoid the disaster of several days ago when they dumped half a bottle into the bathtub (I'd had to spray them off with the shower head because there were too many bubbles to rinse off!)
- Next, I double-check my 8yo son's homework to make sure he put his name on it, discover several spelling and punctuation errors, help him sit down & re-write it. . .
- Now 10yo daughter is anxious because her fingers hurt. What's wrong with them? I ask? She smashed them somehow, I start to listen, but I miss exactly how it happened, because about this time I hear my 5yo daughter yelling that her 2yo brother is wasting shampoo in the bathtub
- I run in there wondering how-in-the-world he got a hold of any shampoo, and I see that I left a sample shampoo out. Oh, good, no real damage done!
- I head back to the kitchen where I check on 8yo's homework, (which is looking great by the way!) and I check the clock. He has 10 minutes until the bus comes, (whew!) plenty of time to finish.
- But then 8yo son reminds me that he hasn't eaten any breakfast yet, so I start to make him a fried-egg sandwich. I notice that my 15yo son left out the blender & protein drink mix this morning. This gives me an idea to make protein shakes, since the blender's already out.
- So I start making protein shakes and adding blueberries for a touch of fruit. I serve them out, recheck on the kids in the tub, recheck on my son's homework, (half done!) and head back to the kitchen wondering what I was supposed to be doing in there.
- About this time, my son says, "Hey Mom, are you still going to make me an egg sandwich?" Ah yes, that's what I was doing!
- About now I realize that I still have a towel on my head. Oh well, I'll take it off in 5 minutes when they leave! :)
- So I pop in the toast, fry an egg, add a slice of cheese, turn off the burner and put the lid on so the cheese will melt. Then I head into the bathroom to get the little ones out.
- They're having lots of fun and I notice that I accidentally left my exciting-and-motivating library book on the toilet seat when I got out of the bathtub, so it's covered with splashes. ugh. . .
- Luckily it's a laminated cover and it was laying with the pages face-down, so I wipe it carefully off, fuss at the kids for splashing, and run back to the kitchen to make sure no one is going to miss the bus.
- Everything looks good, son is done with homework, daughter is ready to go. Son asks if he can take a treat for recess. "Teacher says we can!" I grill him for a minute or two about the details trying to decide if the teacher really said they could, and determine that it will be fine.
- We can't find any snacks to grab easily, so I get some blue-corn tortilla chips and put them in a baggie for him. He sticks them in his backpack.
- My 8yo son grabs his sandals and starts to put them on when I remember about the P.E. shoes. I grab them quickly (amazed that I even know where they are!) and suggest he put them on.
- No, he wants them in his backpack and he'll put them on before P.E. So I put the shoes & socks in the backpack (how can he even carry this thing?), carefully making sure not to crush the chips.
- As I'm doing this, I notice 5 rolls of smarties that I know he took from my "treat stash" that I thought was hidden. But I don't want to make a scene about it and start off his day leaving home with a bad feeling, so I ignore it and mentally make a note to talk to him about it tonight.
- I kiss them goodbye. . . (pant, pant) I head back into the bathroom where I help the little ones get out of the tub, wrap towels around them, and set them into the la-z-boys to watch their "morning shows" on PBS (luckily they already had breakfast!). I decide to get them dressed after I have a BREAK!
- So I head for the office, barely glancing at the kitchen. I don't want to look at the mess! I know I'll spend about an hour getting in it shape, and I'm exhausted by now, so I set my timer and begin my normal schedule of 15 minutes on desk items, 15 minutes on active items.
- So I log-up the computer, still excited about my ideas from this morning, and anxious to write in my blog about them (though I'm beginning to forget what they were. . . hmmm).
- As the computer is logging up, I reach to get a pen from the desk so I can go through today's planner. I notice the BIC Wite-Out dispenser I had purchased at a recent shopping trip. Someone has pulled the tape way out rendering it useless! Grr. . . But, I'm used to things like this, so I pull it apart and try to fix it.
- So I spend the entire 15 minutes that I'm supposed to be setting up my day, reading scriptures & checking my email, instead messing with this dumb thing. (by the way, the above picture is after much work...)
- I re-set my alarm to give myself another 15 minutes :)
- So I work and work, and I just had to show you my COMPLETED fix-it project! Whew! You wouldn't believe how hard it is to fix this dumb thing. So I erased a bit on yesterdays' planner just to test it out (see picture below).
- I had fun with it for a few minutes, knowing this may be the last time I use it. If another kid gets a hold of it, I may just throw it out in digust! Obviously the people who design these don't have kids or there'd be some kind of a lock on it.
- p.s. When my husband read this blog, he told me that he'd found this contraption in out in the yard! He was the one who put it in my desk drawer. Sometimes you have to wonder what kids are thinking! :)
- About the time I got all of this accomplished, checked on the little ones, got them dressed, tidied up the kitchen, and wrote what I have so far on today's blog, I realized...HEY! I STILL HAVE A TOWEL ON MY HEAD!!!
No wonder mother's get discouraged! When people give lip-service to the fact that "being a mother is the hardest job of all", sometimes I wonder if anyone really understands.
But I know that there are thousands of mothers out there, like me, who work their tails off all day and sometimes feel like they aren't getting anywhere at all! It's like being on a treadmill, but instead of getting in shape, you get fatter and older and crabbier! :)
It's after 10am now. So much for my great ideas. . .I'll have to re-read that chapter to remember what I was going to accomplish today! :) The little ones just finished their snack, (no, I haven't been writing this straight through, it's been 15 min. writing/15 min. with kids & house!) and now they're blowing bubbles on the front porch. I guess I'll go join them.
After all, when I chose to stay home from the workforce 15+ years ago, I did it to spend time with my children, not because I wanted to be a housekeeper! Sure, an orderly home makes a place more conducive to peace and good times together. But sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and say, "forget it! For today I'm just going to be the funnest Mommy around. Heck with the house!"
Funny, as soon as I typed that, I heard a little knock on the front door. It was my 5-year-old daughter holding the bottle of bubbles, with my 2-year-old son close behind.
"Mommy, will you come outside & play with us?"
Amazing.
"Sure I will honey! Just give me 5 minutes. I PROMISE!"
So, off I go to blow bubbles. . .
