Journal Notes

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

There she goes....

Seven hours of sleep two nights in a row! We'll see how tonight goes!!!

I just sneaked a peek at her sleeping and....

My, God, she's beautiful!

Warning: This is going to be a potentially boring post in which I just need to talk through some things to figure something out.

I've stopped in the middle of my chores. I'm snacking on my "ZBar" and thirsting for milk. Laundry is waiting and currently on hold. Baby is sleeping, fed, and bathed. I've got kids who need things to do. Things need to be double checked and held accountable. But for now. I need to blog. I need to figure out what's going on here. Too bad you can't make "I's" stand out by capitalizing them. They already are. "Duh!" as my kids would say. I need to blog. THERE- that's much better.

EVERY solitary Wednesday morning I get completely overwhelmed. Does everyone else? Is it because it is no longer the beginning of a new week yet not the end of an old week? I have to figure this out. About this time I figure out I don't have enough time to accomplish all the tasks I wanted to for the week, yet I really want to play. I have errands to run, and for me that's "playing". I love to run errands!

Back to the point. Wednesdays are filled with distractions. EVERYONE needs medicines on Wednesdays, or at least they decide they do. EVERYONE seems distracted. Blaine wants to find his tiger that none of us have seen for months, maybe years. Elizabeth's hamster dies. Rebecca's pecks hurt from doing over 150 push-ups at the gym. Baby spits up countless times on the day I have no burp cloths because.....TODAY IS THE DAY I'M SUPPOSED TO WASH THEM! I just don't get it. Murphy's law, I guess.

So, in the midst of all this distractedness I refocus. I go to my closet. Laundry is everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. I have rid our closet of a laundry hamper and chide myself for doing something so foolish before having a solution. It was everywhere anyway because a certain DH didn't put it in the hamper anyway. I figured why fight a losing battle? Mine was the only clothes to fish out and for some reason he has four or five times more clothes to wash than me. Wednesdays are the day I ponder over this phenomenon because Wednesdays are the day it completely stresses me out.

Monday and Tuesday the girls do their laundry. I haven't figured out any other way. I'm trying to allow them the opportunity to grow up. I gave them their own laundry day. *A door just slammed.* That just means that by Wednesday I have had THREE days of no washing. Can you imagine??? Everything is piled up and staring at me in corners.

And that's it. For now it just seems to be the laundry that is actually overwhelming. Maybe it's not Wednesday after all. Maybe, just maybe it's L-A-U-N-D-R-Y that's overwhelming.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Life With Four

So what is life like? Well, I wake-up around 6:30 or 7:00 to feed the baby. I stumble out of my bedroom sometime after that ready for breakfast. Thankfully, while Daddy was home we taught the girls to wake-up and shower on their own. I know many school-aged children already have this skill down, but ours did not. There's really no need when you homeschool. Blaine already wakes and dresses with the roosters. Someone unloads the dishwasher. We start school. I dress the baby and eventually put her back to bed. Try to get a few things done. Usually this means washing a load of laundry, checking email, picking up the house. The kids start school. Oh, wait, where are the kids? There they are. Maybe a little nap. Feed the baby. Oh, wait, where is the baby? Just kidding. There she is.

Lunch time. Spelling and maybe another nap or maybe a few errands. Sometimes I run errands in the morning if I'm really hot to trot. I have found I cannot wait for everyone else to get my stuff done. I must strike while the iron is hot.

Send the kids outside if it's sunny. Find a game to play if it is not. We have just now added reading/history. Of course my kids have been reading every day. I am talking about ME reading read-alouds to them. Now, you may think the older girls are too old for this, but I think it is something we will enjoy forever. Somehow I find the time to check whatever work they have gotten done and encourage them to finish the rest and make corrections. Sometimes Elizabeth will go for a bike ride with friends and the girls have gymnastics/dance/youth group three out five days of the week.

I have no idea what else we do in the afternoon. All I know is the baby eats every three hours and by God's grace I keep the house going! Whew. Now it's time for dinner and Daddy to come home. Yeah!!!

I certainly never could foresee that four children would be in my life. I am still astounded that I have done this so many times. I feel sort of like a circus clown keeping the circus alive. But a little at a time I'm feeling we are getting more used to things, settling in, and accepting that this is the way things were always meant to be...

Advice for New Parents....

My pearl of wisdom for today:
"Spit-up dries."

That sounds really gross doesn't it? But in my moment of panic when she spits up on the outfit I just put her in (for the second time) and I lay her on the sheets I JUST washed....I stress. Then a few hours later when I realize I never had the time to change her or care to wash the sheets on my bed...I remember with a shrug, "Oh, good, spit-up dries". It may not be the most ideal way to deal with the crisis. The clean-freak in me would much rather rip the sheet off and change her cute outfit ONE MORE TIME. But the desperately tired part of me somehow won out.