Yesterday was a really busy day. I had my carpool responsibilities which basically is two 45 minute - 1 hour round trips when I pick up and drop off boys at home and school. First thing in the morning I realised that it was our turn to take the snack for Nathan's class so we had to go to Target before the day had even really begun. Nathan has lunch about 10.45am on car pool day as we leave the house by 11.10am. By the time I was on the road I hadn't done a whole lot I guess but I hadn't stood still either. During the two hours before I'm back on the road again, I have to get things done. I have been trying to nap but not yeasterday. I was doing a pot roast for dinner. Not hard or anything but it requires plenty of time standing in the kitchen. While I was getting that in the crock pot I noticed that I had several bananas not really good for eating straight anymore so I had to make banana brownies and banana bread because I hate to throw them away. I was back on the road by 2pm and home by three. I continued baking until Leia and Spencer came home at 3.45pm. I was then loading and unloading the dishwasher between getting stuff out of the oven and helping with homework.
After dinner I felt exhausted. At the end of the day my body just sort of feels wrong, there's no other way to describe it. When not incubating another person I can relax fairly easily but right now the tension just seems to remain until I wake up the next morning. Even laying down in bed at night it's hard for me to get comfy and my legs are restless. I let the last round of dishes from dinner sit in the sink (planning to hit them later) and just collapsed on the sofa.
Gary is always very good at bedtime. I can rely on him to bathe the kids, make sure reading goals are met and have everyone quiet/asleep usually by 8pm at the latest. As I was sitting there I recalled that today is school picture day and Leia's hair hadn't been washed in a couple of days. I said to Gary and I quote "Please can you make sure Leia washes her hair because it's picture day tomorrow". "Sure", he says. About half an hour later all the kids emerged in pajamas and wet hair and so nothing seemed amiss. I had checked to see if the shirt I wanted Leia to wear was clean. It was folded in her drawer so I assumed it was clean. I have no worries with Spencer as he persistently wears the same thing over and over so I knew he had loads of clean clothes in his drawers.
The kids were in bed by 7pm and I stayed on the couch all evening. Gary even did the last load of dishes and I was thinking what a stand up guy he is. Until this morning.
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My plan on laying down to sleep was to get up half an hour early and that would give me time to straighten Leia's hair and maybe do something else to it. I could also make sure the kids didn't miss any spots on their teeth and were wearing the clothes I wanted them to wear. I dragged myself out of bed at the appointed time and plugged in the flat iron. I retrieved Leia and brought her into my bathroom. I brushed through her hair and noticed it wasn't looking the way I had expected it to. I separated it a bit and began to straighten it. It was really oily looking at the scalp and very limp and lifeless. In fact it looked a lot like mine would if I decided not to wash it for a whole week and I'm a 30 year old hormonal woman. Leia swore up and down that last night in the shower she had washed her hair. And of course Daddy was supposed to have been supervising the operation. I asked her to get me the bottle of shampoo she had used. She brought me a bottle of conditioner. I asked her to read the bottle. She said "oh". Yes, "OH CRAP" was more like it as 15 minutes of my cushion had gone and there was no way she was going to school with hair like that.
I had to stick her over the tub and give her hair a good wash. Of course at this point it got a little frantic. The water was too hot, her neck hurt, the hairdryer was burning her ears. I had to tell the boys to pour their own cereal and so even though I didn't have to do that, I had to pick cheerios up from off the kitchen floor. Gone were the grand ideas of putting her hair up, I just had to be content with having it clean shiny and blown dry with a few minutes of the flat iron for good measure. Then we went to her room to put on the shirt that I assumed was clean since it was in her drawer and not in the dirty clothes.
I'm sure at this point you can guess what's coming next. These are the times when I literally want to scream. I provide two baskets in the laundry room for colors and whites. Gary assures me that every night he makes sure that the kids look at their clothes and put the dirty ones in the appropriate baskets or else they get folded up and put away in their drawers. More often than not, I realise that I haven't washed anything belonging to Spencer in a couple of weeks and I find he's putting all his dirties back in his drawers night after night. Or I go into the laundry room and all the clothes are laying on the floor inches from the two baskets.
Leia's shirt was not filthy but it should have been washed. I wearily went to the bathroom to try and sponge off the more noticeable bits. Fortunately I know the format of the school pictures - head and shoulder shots so I knew even if the spots were still there they wouldn't be in the picture. Still it's the principle. It doesn't take much for Gary to really supervise these things. I think that he often can't be bothered and justifies it by saying they need to learn to do these things themselves which I agree with although I need him there in the background making sure of it.
Well they are both clean, tidy, and safely at school now. I can take a breath. The thought of cooking today is hideous but I'm not going to be able to get out of it. Or of cleaning. One look at the kids bathroom downstairs this morning as I was sponging Leia's shirt makes me think once a week might not be enough. Looks like a toothpaste bomb went off down there. And it's laundry time again. Of course this time I perhaps won't trust just what's in the laundry baskets. Looks like I'm going to have to go through three chests of drawers as well! I'm tired already.
And thinking ahead to Jan/Feb. I'm not quite sure how I could have squeezed anything else into my day over the past 24 hours. What on earth am I going to do when I also have a hungry screaming baby to also take care of. I thought I was fairly organized but it looks like I am going to have to seriously raise my game.
2 comments:
You poor, poor thing! I wish I was there to help you out. You have a lot on your plate right now. Even though having a clean bathroom seems important - in the grand scheme of things, it's just not. It can wait a few more days and even a week wouldn't be bad. I'm concerned about you. YOU are more important than a clean bathroom. Take care of yourself.
Someone once told me that our lives are like a tree. When we look at them up close, they are made up of assymetrical and imperfect parts. But when you step back and look at the whole tree you behold a beautiful, perfect tree.
I have always loved that idea because life is rarely perfect and I often wonder if I will ever get it right. But when I look at all the things that I do do and the good that is happenning I see that life is beautiful, even amidst it's natural imperfections.
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