I have always been very flexible- I could/ still can do the splits and lots of other weird things. But being flexible as a parent has a totally different meaning. It means this- "Hmm... I will do A, then B and maybe C, and if we're really lucky, maybe brush my teeth." Two hours later, "Okay, A took a lot longer than I planned. In fact, it's only half done. Well, we'll skip B and I will brush my teeth while taking care of C." Two more hours pass. "Well, really it's okay if it all gets done tomorrow. I'm sure it won't hurt to wait one more day to (insert action here- shop, fold laundry, clean bathrooms). In fact, I can finish it tonight after the kids are in bed." After the kids are in bed I fall over in a heap of exhaustion. I can't even remember the last time I actually got to item C, and unfortunately, blogging is usually C...... or even E or F.
But the trick is, to have nothing ever go the way you had planned, and not let it put you in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
If you were to ask me what I did with my day, I'm not sure I could tell you. It's so indefinable, it's like trying to remember a dream in the morning. Something happened, but all the details are fuzzy.
Maybe if my to do list were this- A. Keep kids alive.
B. Feed kids.
C. Dress kids. and so forth, then at the end of the day, I could look at my list and say, "My, what a productive day we've had!"
And in the end, it is a productive day. When I see what lovely, smart and kind children our kids are most of the time, I know that all these little nothings are adding up to a big something.
And just to prove my point, this blog post has been written over the course of two hours this morning, in between preschool pickups, baby feedings, Emme clean-ups, book readings, stopping Emme from spinning the baby in circles in her saucer and phone calls- and I still haven't brushed my teeth!
4 comments:
I'm always checking your blog to see if you've updated it, and I can see how it would be way hard to do that often with 5 kids! But when you do I always enjoy your posts!
Hahaha..... Loved reading this. It sounds like home! I also always like how you have one more child than me all the time. That way, I am able to see you deal with things first and well, if you don't get admitted to a psych ward then I figure I could survive another child added into the mix too. Every once in a while I feel like the kids are killing me one day at a time. No wonder people look old! The young looking people probably only had one child! Strangely, even feeling like they are taking over, we still want more children! As the say, God works in mysterious ways. He must be influencing us! :)
Mel, the fact that you even worry about brushing your teeth counts as brushing your teeth when you're a mother of 5.
I have no children and it still takes me like 8 hours to write a blog post.
You're so good at expressing exactly how life is with umpteen children!
Since I know you take excellent care of your teeth, there must be times that you squeeze that in, too. :)
I think your last A,B,C list is exactly what you do most of the time when you have little ones; when they get older it's: A. Keep yourself alive B. Feed yourself, and C. Get dressed.
Oh, wait...those are goals now too, aren't they? And very lofty ones at that. Haha.
Thanks for posting!
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