Childhood is a magical time. Kids change so quickly in so many ways... especially in retrospect. It seems like two months ago that we brought home our first sweet baby girl. She turned 7 this year. I honestly don't remember much about the intervening years, except to say that our babies are no longer babies.
Well, except the one, but we really did bring her home 2 short months ago. (It's funny how the first two months of a baby's life fly by soooooo much faster than the last two months of pregnancy!)
Overall, things are going very well. For one thing, baby 4 is only waking up once each night, which means that life is returning to some semblance of normalcy. For another, I am feeling so much better than I was two months ago it's almost ridiculous. I still can't take normal-size steps because of pain in my hips, but even with that, I can move! It's beautiful.
And so, it's time to start putting our lives back in order. I need to keep up with the laundry, do the dishes, make sure everybody gets enough food each day and at least one bath per week. Beyond that, I'd really like to do a little deep cleaning every day... just to make our house feel livable again.
Here's how a typical day goes:
Wake up in the middle of the night to feed the baby.
Wake up, bleary-eyed, earlier than I'd like (given the night feeding) to feed the baby again.
Thank my lucky stars that my husband is good at mornings and takes care of the kids before work.
Take a nap after baby eats, and hope it makes up for the night feeding. (It usually doesn't, but it helps.)
Get up and get dressed.
Change a diaper.
Get food for myself.
Remind kids to work on school.
Eat.
Get lunch for kids.
Work on dishes while they eat.
Remind kids to work on school.
Change a diaper.
Work on laundry.
Remind kids to work on school.
Work on cleaning up the table in the front room.
Correct school work.
Continue to work on cleaning up the table in the front room.
Correct school work again.
"Yes, you can go outside. You should probably put on a sweatshirt; it's cold outside."
"I don't know where your shoes are. Where did you put them?"
"You should put your sweatshirt on."
"Because it's cold outside."
"Where did you put your shoes when you took them off?"
"Didn't you just get water?"
"Yes, it's a good idea to go to the bathroom before you go outside."
"You're going to be cold if you don't put on your sweatshirt."
"Because the weather is getting colder outside."
Try to work on the table some more. (Didn't I get this cleaned off two days ago?)
"You need another drink of water?"
"Yes, by all means, please go to the bathroom."
"I told you you needed a sweatshirt. It's cold outside, right?"
"JUST GO OUTSIDE ALREADY!!!"
Work on laundry.
Change a diaper.
Feed the baby.
Burp the baby.
"Oh, your shoes were outside? That's no good. I'm glad you found them."
Put the baby down for a nap and hope that she sleeps.
Turn back to the blasted table.
Turn back around and pick the baby back up.
Give up on the day because the baby won't let me do anything else.
Stupid table still needs attention.
Laundry is piled all over my bedroom, but at least I've made some progress.
Guess what I'm doing tomorrow?
Childhood is supposedly a magical time... for the children. :) I find that the simple tasks I would like to get out of the way so I can enjoy my life become infinitely more difficult and time-consuming with small children running around. Conversations take infinitely longer. Tasks must be repeated 12 times before they can be considered done, because curious and exuberant children undo them just so fast.
Super-moms, how do you do it?
Sincerely,
Drowning in a never-ending mess
No comments:
Post a Comment