Friday, October 17, 2008

You know those mornings where you realize that everyone in your home, assuming the husband is already away at work, is working against you and your goals? Even when your goal is simply to get out to the store to buy nourishment for the very children blocking your every effort? And your secondary goal is to get out the door with everyone looking reasonably kempt?
I'm one of many unshowered mothers, and this is my story.
Everything goes smoothly until Daddy walks out the door. As soon as that door is shut, baby has a stinky, Anna's diaper leaked on her pajamas, she wants eggs, no, cereal, no, eggs, okay cereal. Anna cries, "There's a bug in my cereal!" No, it's not a bug, it's just a piece of cereal. Sonja wants to nurse for forever, or at least through highschool, and never eat solid foods or ever EVER take formula. Mom just wants a shower at some point and Raisin Bran. After wheedling the baby to sleep for her nap, Anna is finished with her cereal and announces so in just the perfect tone for rousing sleeping babies. All hope for a shower is lost. Morning chores are tended to while the children cheerfully undo them in my wake. Both girls need a bath so that happens and at 10AM they are clean and dressed. I finish up the grocery list and trudge to get dressed, unshowered and slightly bitter about it, when the thought comes. I scoop up the baby, put her in her crib. She protests, but I know she's tired. I tell Anna to play with puzzles and be good and I leap into twelve minutes of white noise bliss that is the shower. =)
Okay, so I am a showered mom.
Anyway, Sonja wakes up and we head out the door for the store. It is now 11AM, the time I hoped to return by. Things go somewhat okay at the store until we wait in an unusually long line, check out, walk across the parking lot and load the groceries and kids back in the car whereupon I learn that I have stolen the cream cheese. Sonja had expertly shifted her carseat to cover it while I was checking out. Or it had slid under. Either way, the first thing I thought about was how they had charged Chris twice for an item once and he didn't realize it until he came home and of course never made them fix it. And the second thing I thought of was how many times as a kid I had gone back into the store with my mom when we discovered an unpaid for item. So I reloaded the girls in the shopping cart, went back to wait in line again. We return home at 12:30, past the optimum fall asleep period for Anna.
Lunch is made and consumed. Sonja does a little better with sweet potatoes and oatmeal cereal. Anna is falling asleep in her chair so naptime commences. Anna goes down sweetly in her room and I put Sonja down in our room. Anna is quiet as a mouse so I presume she's asleep and fall asleep with Sonja.
A half hour later I sense Anna next to me and there she is. There is something in her face, a sheepishness perhaps. As I put her back in her bed, I notice a tiny dot of blue on her shirt. I walk out of her room puzzling as to what that could be from as her room is in order so she wasn't playing in there. I thought I would have heard her had she been out of her room but apparently not. I came into the living room and found that she had stood up on the desk to get a pen off the top shelf of the hutch, a blue ink pen. It's not nearly as bad as it could have been. She wrote a few checks, circled some 401k percentages she wanted Dad to look at, checked off some envelopes she had gone through and wrote 40 post-it notes to herself. I am SO thankful she only colored on paper. Sadly she also scribbled in our family Bible. I did find it interesting that she circled the word "conviction". That must have been when she left off her mischief and came into our room.
Well, Daddy just walked in the door so order is by rule restored. Sigh...

13 comments:

  1. Oh my, Missy, we had disturbingly similar mornings! I went grocery shopping, too and I got into the car and realized I had transfered a greeting card to the other cart without ringing it up. I read the receipt in the car with everyone strapped in and I wrestled with my conscience and felt sure that Bi-Lo accounts for such mistakes but then I got everyone out and tracked back in to pay for it. You would think they would have been glad that I went through the trouble, not even a thank you for your honesty. The first time through the girl asked me if I'd seen the show Joe and Kate plus 8...(is that even the name of it) about the people with sextuplets, surely I didn't look that overwhelmed :)

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  2. As difficult as I'm sure it was, I do love reading your stories. I love hearing about the girls in your fun words. Miss ya!

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  3. Ahhh, a window into the life of Missy.
    You should write a post like this once a week or so, it's good reading!

    A ((BIG HUG)) for you!

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  4. Anonymous8:02 PM

    Do you know how gross that is about Sonja not eating soild food. At your high school graduation, Maria was sitting next to Grandpa McKeller, and Cassie(our cousin who we call the roung-headed kid) was 2ish and decided he wantted a drink, but guess what the drink was. Bingo!. Grandpa remaked that he had the worst seat in the house.
    Love aunt katie

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  5. Oh, you capture it all so well in words. Thanks for the laugh. I can't tell you HOW MANY post-it note pads we've been through in our house. If I REALLY want to be able to use them, I have to hide them!

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  6. The comedian,Sam Levenson said:
    "Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children."

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  7. I enjoyed reading your tales. Partially because of your way with words and partially because I can totally understand how days like that go.

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  8. I am sitting here reading your stories and I laugh and sigh as I see my life in them. I have decided that bedtime bathing the night before grocery shopping is my best alternative.
    Why is it that the children seem to instantly behave better when daddy get's home?

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  9. Anonymous1:55 PM

    My friends and I have decided that inorder to be a mother you have to be an the verge of insanity and then once they're there you have the straw that broke the camel's back.
    Love aunt katie

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  10. Katie are you saying that you are ready to be a mother?

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  11. Is it mean that I am smiling at the craziness of your day? Well written...sigh....it happens to us all. Isn't it amazing how daddies make it all better?

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  12. Are there hidden cameras in my house? Because you absolutely just described my life.

    Hang in there, it gets better. This morning I got a shower 10:15 instead of 11:00.

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  13. Anonymous5:27 PM

    someone knows me to a tee.
    aunt katie

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