One. More. Week.

Ah, the most glorious day of the year will soon be upon us: the first day of school.

Now, before all my teacher friends start throwing things at their computer (or whichever device of choice you might use to read my ramblings), I ask you to consider the current state of my household:

• Three kids, yelling at each other when one looks at another sideways, for no apparent reason except to see how quickly my head will explode
• Laundry out the wazoo because these kids find it necessary to change their clothes four times a day
• Library books collecting dust, chores not finished, toys on every surface of this house...until I lose my face at them for not listening when I tell them to read a book or clean up after themselves
• A mom on the edge of her seat (and sanity), counting down the days until school starts and also counting to ten more times than she cares to admit

Just because the kids return to school does not mean that any of this will stop. The kids will still yell at each other before and after school, there will always be a ridiculous amount of laundry, and I will still have to flip out and/or count to ten when dealing with all their shenanigans. However, every school day there will be a lovely six hour break from the nonsense. And that, my friends, is the key to keeping my last shreds of sanity intact. I need that break. It is the only thing that will help me build up my patience reservoir, and unless Costco starts selling huge vats of patience (wouldn't that be great?), it will take me until next May (why does school let out so early?!?) to completely restore it. 

As my boys are gleefully yelling "BUTT CHEEKS" upstairs, while they should be brushing their teeth and getting ready for bed, I can just sit here and remind myself over and over: One. More. Week.

I just might make it.

Lukewarm Coffee

We can probably all agree that Mondays are rough. Today was really no exception.

Our typical household chaos got off to a quick start, and I soon found myself with only 20 minutes left to shower before our sitter arrived. Not a problem; with three kids, I am able to get myself ready to go in no time. With 10 minutes to spare, I stepped out of the shower, only to discover that there were no clean towels. Fantastic.

And then the doorbell rang. Our sitter was early; panic ensued.  I grabbed the last washcloth in the cabinet and frantically tried to dry off with that. Super fun.

After using the world's smallest towel, I threw my clothes on, grabbed my coffee cup, and went rushing out of my bedroom to greet the sitter. Before I made it out the door, though, I collided with Alex, who was running in to announce the sitter's arrival.

What. A. Mess.

My hand flew up in the air upon impact, tossing a big spray of coffee straight up into the air, and I watched as it splattered on top of Alex's head. Two thoughts immediately crossed my mind: 1) I am glad I don't take my coffee extra hot (it was actually lukewarm by that point in my morning, thankfully!), and 2) I bet that would have been hilarious to watch later had it been caught on video.

Poor Alex just stood and stared at me, wide eyed, as I looked down and realized that miraculously, none of the coffee had landed on me or my work clothes. I quickly assessed the damage, silently praised myself for having already booked the carpet cleaners to come this week, and helped Alex take off his coffee soaked tshirt. Not having time to dwell on much of anything, we trotted down the stairs and moved on with our day.

Somehow, I made it to work on time. My day actually went pretty well (until after work, anyway, when the boys got in a juice fight with a Capri Sun...oh, the sticky floors!), and now I'm winding down my day and heading to bed.

Hopefully, tomorrow I can enjoy all of my coffee instead of accidentally showering one of the kids with it. Let's also hope that the coffee stains come out of the carpet!

Such a Monday...

This was, by far, the most challenging Monday I've had in a long time.

Sure, everyone complains about Mondays; I'm no different.  But, my complaints usually don't have much behind them other than my reluctance to start a new week of chaos.  I typically get over my "case of the Mondays" without much drama, but then today happened.

We started the day with our typical morning madness, scrambling to get everyone up and ready and out the door.  Of course, as soon as it was time to drop off the kids, the sky opened and rain started to pour down. So, I arrived to work a little on the damp side; while unfortunate, I would have been happy if this had been the worst of my Monday saga.

After about twenty minutes of staring at a fuzzy computer screen, I was completely puzzled as to why my contacts had not "settled", and blamed my growing headache on the lovely, stress-induced cold I am not enjoying at all.  Then, it dawned on me that I never put my contacts in before leaving the house this morning. What?!?  How does one do this?  My tired, farsighted self didn't realize my eyeballs were naked until it was too late for me to run home and grab my contacts.  So, I somehow made it through my work day, but I could only do so by sitting about two inches from my laptop screen (try typing like that one day...good times).

Although I was on a tight schedule after work, I had to stop at home to fix my vision issues.  My plan was to stop by the post office, go to the bank, pick up the kids, and get to church for the first night of VBS...all in about an hour and 45 minutes. Ambitious, no?

I have never been so happy to put in my contacts, and since I was at home I decided to prep my bank deposit before leaving for the post office.  Only, I couldn't find my bank deposit.  I somehow managed to pull an Uncle Billy and forget where I put my bank stuff!  Ugh!!  My checkbook plus the cash Addie collected for Team Alex was missing, causing immediate panic on my part.  It wasn't that I couldn't replace the cash (and I absolutely would have!), but my checkbook was going to be more difficult to replace. Beyond that, I do not like losing track of my stuff.  I was irritated, my head hurt, and I was way behind on my schedule, but I headed off to the post office anyway.

Of course, there was a huge line and there was no air conditioning, but eventually I finished that errand and tried to focus on where I could have left my banking items. Then, it occurred to me that I had everything out of my bag at work when I was searching for a mirror to check for contacts; I realized that I must have left the envelope in my desk.  Back to the office I went; but, not before I was delayed by TWO trains.

Fortunately, I found the deposit locked in my desk drawer (HUGE sigh of relief!!) but by then it was too late to stop at the bank, so I headed off to get the kids.  By then, I was going to be very late for my volunteer shift at VBS, but I kept trucking on.

I was so over Monday by the time I got to the kids, but I loaded them up to head to VBS (although my achy head pleaded with me to just go home).  Through screaming kids and traffic, we somehow made it to the church, and eventually got everyone settled.

Then, with the kids herded off for a bit, I had a moment to stop and take a deep breath, more than eight hours after my difficult day had started.  It was a loooong breath, I'll tell you.  I got to stand back and watch the kids enjoy VBS; singing, dancing, crafting, learning, making new friends.  It was the perfect remedy for a bad mood.

We hit a couple more bumps on our way home, but the kids are now settling down into bed and I'll have an hour to myself before falling into bed.  Here's hoping tomorrow is not so brutal.

Going and Going...

My kids seem to have Energizer Bunny genes.  They don't stop; they just keep going and going and going. All.  Day.  Long.

I'm certain they aren't the only kids like this, and they do have their quiet moments throughout the day, but I feel like most of the time they are bouncing from one thing to the next without stopping to take a breath.  It's exhausting.

Add to it toilet training (I told Alex today, for about the 352nd time, that I am OVER it, and he just needs to get rid of pull-ups), behavior issues (Andrew has been closely studying Alex for more than five years, and thinks he can also pull some of the same behavior crap), and a daughter who goes sideways if her brothers so much as look at her, and you've got a full fledged recipe for chaos.

I figure we've got several more years of this coming our way before they grow out of these behaviors (and adapt new ones, fun!), so I will just have to suck it up and promise that I'll keep trying, day after day.  What else can you do?

And so, with that, I'm off to bed.  I hope you're enjoying the weekend.

Schedules

Weird.  For the first time in months, we have free evenings.  Evenings with no sports practices, no dance classes.  Crazy.

I'm almost uneasy about this.  Unstructured hours?  Nothing good can come from that.  Something might get cleaned; papers may be organized.  Nobody really wants to see the top of their desk, right?  And what fun is it to select clothes out of drawers instead of half-unfolded piles in baskets?

I don't know; perhaps it won't be so bad.  I am behind in my reading; it would be lovely to sit and read in the comfort of my own home, and finish a book without renewing it from the library eight times.

At any rate, I won't complain too much.  Before we know it, we'll be back to our six-night-a-week chaotic schedule that we know and love.  Or loathe.  Whatever.