Motherhood, how boring!

The day starts with my son patting my head….”MOMMY!!!!  I DIDN’T PEE!!!  I DIDN’T PEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!”  as he climbs up attempting to get on the bed.  “Oh that’s great honey!!!!  You big, big boy!!!  Now get dressed and come downstairs after you brush your teeth.”  Same thing said to daughter who is already dressing her American Girl Doll first as always….  They scurry down, however son is not dressed…”Get upstairs and get your clothes on please.  You always come down here in your underwear and you need to dress yourself every morning and you KNOW that!  It’s a simple rule.  DO IT!”  (Every day the boy does this…..drives me CRAZY!)

Over breakfast, fight ensues with DS….again.  EVERY MORNING!  So I walk into the living room and take it away, and march right out.  Silently, with lava brewing…deep within my soul.  Immediately tantrum flares and promises screamed about never fighting again and one blaming the other and the sob story of who takes longer turns etc etc.  After I have completely ignored every request and desperate plea to give the DS back, I hear the TV go on…..fighting then ensues over which program to watch.  I go into the living room (bubbling lava…) and turn the TV off.  What happens next?  Oh you know full well, don’t ya??  Tantrums, crying, ‘woe is me for not being able to watch TV before I go to school’ drama, blaming and yelling at each other….  Etc etc etc ETC ETC.

Now comes the yelling.  (Oh… from me, I mean.)   “ENOUGH! ENOUGH! You both get your shoes on and in the car NOW!”  ( I am now mumbling prayers to the Lord my God for strength and endurance and I have only been up for an hour)  Kids seem to have no idea what I just said.  They don’t move.  “Really????  REALLY???????”   I exclaim with that exasperated look they know all too well….. “MOVE IT NOW!!!”

They make it to the car with only 4 mishaps along the ten foot path to the garage….  “Where’s your backpack hun??”…… “No you can’t go barefoot to the car in the middle of winter!”….. “Yes you need a coat and no not the spring coat!” “Did you find your boots that were in the same place they ALWAYS are??” Now as they fight over who knows what in the car, I scurry to grab my coffee throw my boots on and stuff my PJ bottoms in them.  (never thought in a million years I would be the mom in her PJs taking the kids to school….and here I am!)  And off we go!  WHEW!

On to the next….. hop in the shower, get my son ready to take to friend’s house, so I can make it to the dentist 30 miles away to get my new bite adjusted and a mouth guard for the grinding at night that has my head and neck and mouth SCREAMING in pain.  (Would love to edit this sentence but I think it flows pretty nicely for a mile, don’t you?)  Five-year old son is now resistant to leaving in the middle of a cartoon.  I end up sitting on the toilet with nervous bowels anyway…dreading the dentist and already in so much pain I could cry. Then I receive a call from my Mother-In-Law saying she is still sick and can’t make “Grandparent’s Night” at school tonight.  Oh dear…..my daughter will be a mess about this….but I don’t let on to my sweet MIL that this throws things just a bit.  Get off with her and finally get my son over to my dear friend who will take him to school and I should be back by pick up.

Leave dentist in the nick of time with a prescription of hospital size anti-inflammatory pills to hopefully dull the pain….run to grocery pharmacy to drop off script and run to school to get son….then a friend calls stuck in traffic, needs a back up….no problem!  I was able to let the teachers know and take her daughter and wait for her in the parking lot.  (I love my mom friends so much!  We always have each other’s backs.  I can’t tell you how many times they have had mine!) So another dear mom friend comes out of school and says the traffic is backed up bad because of an accident, she has to fly to get older kid off bus stop that is detoured because of this.  I gladly take her son. (He is my son’s best friend and well, I profess my undying love for this child at any and all times possible! J He is truly about the CUTEST kid that ever walked this planet.)

Now my other friend that was stuck in traffic shows up in parking lot with her poor screaming baby who is fevering and my heart just breaks for her!  I relinquish her daughter to my dear mommy friend with crying fevering baby while cancelling our play date for the next day because I now have to go back to dentist for the new mouth guard.  As I squeeze this quick conversation in, I realize the boys are now running a mock in parking lot collecting any and all muddy sticks to throw in the car. I run to get the two boys in the car to make it home to put the ribs in the oven and make a peanut butter sandwich to inhale for me as I am starving because I didn’t have time to grab lunch.  (Apparently there will be many mile long run-ons in this blog!  Just how the day goes….)

Boys were dressed in their pajamas because it was a fundraiser day at school, which entitled every kid to wear them if they brought a donation.  So both boys run upstairs and come down in “hand picked” short outfits. (Yes, this is February in Ohio.  The boys seem to think otherwise) My son’s room is now ransacked with every drawer opened and every article of clothing out.  Glad they found something comfortable, but I get them back in the car to pick up my daughter with no time to put the room back together.

Oh, I really could use the leftover coffee, I think as I see it still on my counter from 12 hours ago….I throw it quick in the microwave before getting kids in car.  I come back to get coffee and HOLY QUACAMOLE!!!  WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED???????”  Coffee sprayed EVERYWHERE!!!!!!  The microwave is not lighting up….it blew up!  OH MY GOSH!  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!  I don’t have time for this!!!! Coffee dripping down every open pore of the damn machine.  ALL OVER the counter now and I am unable to walk away…..talking to myself as I hear the boys out in the car….. “you can do this, you can do this…  tick tock tick tock…..gonna be so late….gonna be so late….. leave now leave now leave now!!!!  Walk away walk away now!”  I run to the car with a half cleaned up coffee tornado all over the kitchen left to permeate the house and ferment ‘til I get home….and no coffee to drink.

Fly down to the school to see only two kids left for pick up…..whew!  I am not the last one!  (by the skin of my aching teeth!)  I tried to explain to the teacher about the microwave blowing up and coffee all over yadda yadda yadda….. so on we go.  Friend calls with time frame to get her son and we make a plan to meet at a park halfway between houses to save us all time.  I break the news to my daughter about grandparent’s night.  As she starts to sob, I immediately do what every mom would do….. I pray that she doesn’t think of me going instead!  And…..she does.  Instantly.  “Mommy, will you go with me??”

I pull into the park and HOLY GUACAMOLE!!!  IT’S GONE!!!!!  OMG!!!!!  All that is left are the orange fences and mounds of dirt in the parking lot.  The park is GONE!  I call my friend…..  “YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!!!! ” And she didn’t………..  plan B?????

Next park, farther out of the way but it’s the first nice day in say 20 years and the kids need the fresh air, if only for a few minutes before we run to the next “thing”.   The park is TOTALLY PACKED.  Of course it is!  Every other kid in town needs the same fresh air!  Getting mighty stuffy out here!  Then I realized my dear daughter is still in her bright blue cloud puffed silk pajamas from school as other adults gave a second look to the poor girl and looked oh so confused….I should have brought a change of clothes! Gave it a thought…and not a second one.  She could care a less that she was in her pajamas….so I won’t either!

After watching the kids fly through the mud over and over and over to get muddy big rocks to throw into the muddy stream and splash mud everywhere, (I’m really not a fan of dirt) my friend called saying she is stuck in traffic due to this accident. It is now bitter cold and I am freezing as the knives of pain hit my teeth from the gusts of wind, I try to keep up with the kids realizing that the shorts the boys are wearing are completely inappropriate for this balmy 40 degree weather.  Ugh.  “Aren’t you cold boys?”  “NOOOOOO!” as they run faster with snot dripping down my son’s red swollen face.  Oh well, nothing I can do now…accept freeze and bear through the mudslinging fun.

Time is ticking as I call my husband to make sure he will be home to watch my son, so I can stand in for Grandparent’s night at school.  No answer.  Texted him.  No reply.  Mmmm……ok…will wait.  Friend shows up and after few minutes of each taking a five minute turn venting, we start to get the kids together to go and I try calling my hubby again…..no answer.  What am I going to do if he is stuck in this traffic?  My daughter continues to resist any idea of cancelling the evening plans…which I attempt to ask in twenty different tempting ways ….. but she is distraught with tears every time.  “Okay, okay…I will go honey! I know, I am so sorry Grandma is sick.  Of course I will go with you.   It will be great!  I know there are special things planned.  Got it.”

Get home to the sweet smell of ribs…and coffee… as I groan in dismay.  Almost forgot about that lovely disaster.  Open up the brown stained microwave…start cleaning…. Try Hubby again…getting very nervous because we are supposed to be there at six and my daughter wants to get there by 5:30 to do some sort of craft.  Going on 5:20.  Start dishing out quick dinner for kids as five-year-old throws his early evening meltdown.  Stopping the naps has been hard this year…..gotta push him through!

I feel sick and hungry, but can’t eat the ribs…. realized I never even got my prescription.  The pain is almost unbearable….husband walks in the door.  “DID YOU GET MY PHONE CALLS?  DID YOU GET MY TEXTS?????”  I squeal with total exasperation.  “Uh….my phone was on low in the car, I must’ve not heard it. I saw your texts though.”  I will only say that I was not happy and leave it at that.

Flying out the door with no dinner in my belly and my daughter still picking the ribs out of her teeth, we make it by 6:02.  I spend two hours greeting all the grandparents and doing all the lovely school activities with them and watch the cute singing show the kids put on.  (Secretly dying with pain, hungry, and tired.  And quite honestly, praying for it all to be over soon.)  We leave with cupcake in hand to run to grocery store to pick up the long awaited medicine and to extend this painful day and finish the grocery shopping with the coupons I cut and the list I made the night before, thinking I could surely squeeze it in before now.  Got home at 9:00 with rumbling stomach, ready for the day to end.

It’s 10:00 and my daughter is finally bathed and asleep.  I have finished off three pb&j sandwiches in a row and am ready to cry with pain.  Took the meds….hubby rubbed my neck….and after packing the lunches and snacks for the next day, going through the backpacks and finding homework folders to organize for each child, and getting my coffee ready for the morning…..

I sat and watched “Ghost Hunters” in a delirious state while sucking down the GIANT Hershey bar I got for my husband for our tenth anniversary. (yeah…..sad, right?) I decided I needed it more than him. He pops upstairs to make fun of my show and give me a hug…looks at the chocolate and asks for a piece of it. I rip off one chunk and murmur in a drug induced slur…”happy anniversary honey” this is for you.  “Sorry, I need it more!”   Managing to squeeze out a chuckle….

It’s past midnight.  Gotta go to bed.  Gotta another slow, boring day tomorrow….