Mental Rantings

Its been a bad end of the year for me. I don't even know where to start. I sometimes think people don't comprehend, or care, what its like being a mother with 8 children in a world where people think its crazy to have 3. Often times I wonder if they really know what its like to only know life as a mother. Here's a tidbit of a day of me!

4 am- This is when Mr. Mom gets up for work. This usually involve several snooze hits!
     I am not one of those people who can go right back to sleep! I end up laying in bed trying to convince myself to go to sleep! Never happens.

5 am- This is the time I usually accept that I am not going back to sleep, I get up and use the bathroom and take a shower. Sometimes! Depending on how bad sleep was the night before, sometimes usually becomes rarely as I lay and curse the clock. I have to decide do I want to go pee more than I want sleep because if I don't go before Luscious gets up I won't get to.

6-6:30 am- I psych myself up enough to get Porkchop up and dressed for school. Some mornings it takes 30 minutes just to find his shoes and a clean uniform shirt!

6:30 am- I get him up and proceed to dress him while he's still partially asleep and throwing a tantrum about being up! Me too, little man, me too!

6:45 am- one of two thing happens at this time. See I share custody of Porkchop with my ex and some mornings I get to lay there talking myself into getting up or I leave to get him to school. His school has so many kids but magically there is double this number in line for drop off! If you don't get there by 6:55 am you will be stuck in a never ending line of angry Adderall popping soccer moms on their 25th cup of high caffeine espresso who will ram you for even thinking about being in front of them. This line takes 2 hours and pre-schoolers have to be there by 7:30 or they are late.

7 am- I manage to fight my way past all the crazy SUV drivers and return home! I hate admitting this but I love days when Mr. Mom is home and drives him. I can skip that part and maybe get to stay in bed a little longer! I know you are thinking this is sleeping in but just keep reading!

7-7:45 I try to get the public school kids motivated to get out the door. Thelma usually wakes up in a pissy mood, Wednesday is in her usual demented state, and Luscious is taking his sweet ass time in the only real bathroom we have making the girls have to brush their teeth in the kitchen sink. Which by the way is still loaded with dinner dishes. During this time Beefy wakes up demanding tea and to know where daddy is. At. The. Top. Of. His. Lungs. As well as Nugget is wanting to be fed for the hundredth time since 6 am.

7:45 I drive the Bigs to school. Two schools this time. The middle school isn't really that bad but the high school traffic scares the hell out of me. The young future soccer moms, in their hopped up SUVs that daddy bought them because he knew it was a lost cause to try to teach the absent minded twits how to PAY ATTENTION TO THEIR DRIVING, have almost rammed me a few times while texting how funny it is that they just bumped a curb and tweeting about that bitch with ratty hair and pajamas still on. Oh wait that's me they tweet of!

8 am- I actually make it home with the anxiety level of a POW! I cannot stress enough how important it is to keep coffee on tap in this house! After the stress of getting kids ready for school and managing to not only get them there safe but also on time (since getting Luscious out of the shower in a timely manner is not gonna happen) I want to go back to bed! I can't though I have to get breakfast into the remaining beasts! Louise is usually moody as hell too and has to be medicated. This is usually the time I remember I forgot to medicate Thelma. Another run back to the school to give her her's! Moody Judy is having his morning meltdown because fuck the world! By this point I have saved Beefy from himself an average of 100 times. Mornings that Mr. Mom is home I can relinquish a little of these chores to him.

If appointments need to be made this is the time I start calling to make them. 99% of the time when Mr. Mom is home this is what we are getting kids ready to do if appointments have been made.

9-10 am- The two Bigs at home have to be online to start with class connects. This seems simple right? Its something new we are getting used to and for some reason we always have trouble getting on it. While Beefy is still reigning terror over the home and Nugget is demanding attention. Did I mention I managed to spoil the Nugget when he got sick? He wants to be held all the time.

10-11 am- there is a small amount of peace in this house where there is no stress. Usually I manage to clean or begin cleaning a room! This is also the time Thelma chooses to call and remind me I forgot her medicine if I have yet to remember! I try to run and get groceries during this time if I can because there is less people in the stores and I can get in and out without too much trouble. This is also the only time grocery shopping does not result in "ugly looks" if one of the Littles has a meltdown in the cart!

12 am- LUNCH!!! Since Louise and Moody Judy are homeschooled I've been teaching them how to cook! The one thing I am most thankful for is that my kids are not picky eaters! Did I mention I have yet to consume anything but coffee, lunch for me is the crust from Beefy's PB&J!

12:30-1:45- I fight to get Beefy into the bed for a nap. This ,usually, is a fruitless fight! It ends with me giving in to him not taking a nap. I regret this later on! Usually by this time I have nursed a baby 6 times and changed 4 crappy diapers and if I forget to let the dogs out I've cleaned up dog poop x2! Did I mention I have two LARGE dogs?!

1:50 pm- I go to the school to pick up Porkchop if Mr. Mom has not gotten home yet. This time of year its more likely that he hasn't. Luckily the school streamlined this and the pre-kers get out early in their own line and I don't have to battle the car line! He's a chatty little monkey in the car and its best to let him talk to keep him in a good mood. He loves school and I hope he continues to love it.

2:15 pm- I get him and bring him home. Porkchop is a whiney child sometimes. Usually everything with him leads to a meltdown. I have been working with him on this because he expects to have it his way all the time. At my ex's house Porkchop is an only child and things are done much differently than here. During all of this I have been nursing an infant who thinks his entire reason for being born is to remain firmly suctioned to my breast, soothed toddler trauma because I forgot to protect him from himself. Did I mention I've been trying to clean a 3,000 square foot home to an at least acceptable standard of not rotting down?

Have you ever tried cleaning against the flood of toddler terror and two bigs who think they are Wolfgang Puck and Julia Childs with a 30 lb 6 month old dangling from a teat? That is me!

3:45ish pm- Thelma and Wednesday get off the bus and Beefy decides he wants the nap he refused earlier and doesn't give a damn where he's at.  During this time I cry a lot over homework. Not because I'm dumb but because the way they want it done now is stupid and makes the brightest of kids feel stupid. I believe our education system has decided if they can't make them smarter make them all dumb. The inventor of the common core system should be shot! Why when something works would you go and change it? And all the people praising it, I get it, you like pretending to be better than others. I know you really don't understand it either.

Also do teachers not realize children have other teachers than them? Why do they feel the need to give them so much? Does it really need to take a child 3 hours to finish your one class's work? Back off. School time is school time and families don't need to waste family time doing school work. Robbing families of time together is what is wrong with this country. We don't need the stress and drama your "new way" of doing stuff causes. I spend an hour a day arguing and being screamed at because my above average children are not "getting" this new stuff.

4ish pm- Luscious comes meandering in and I have to stay on his ass to speed him up so that he gets to work on time. I have to drive him because even though he's legally an adult he felt the need to come home to go for his driving test to be a problem to his awesome schedule of no responsibility at the time and doesn't have his license. Oh wait! Not anymore because he has been suspended at work because he couldn't be bothered to stay on their time schedule and be there when he was supposed to be. Did I mention I spend another 30 minutes a day crying because I failed him and he is a failure to launch?

4:30-45ish Mr. Mom usually gets home. I will see him 30 minutes to an hour later after he's had his shower and whatever else he needs to leisurely do when he gets home.

5ish pm- (the ish because once everyone is home I am no longer able to stick to a schedule) I try to get dinner started. This isn't as easy as most because I am cooking for 10 people that includes 2 grown men, one tiny girl who eats like two grown men.

6:30ish pm- usually we try to get baths started now because 3 of the kids requires our hands on help bathing. My daughters take forever in the tub and Moody Judy has to be forced kicking and screaming to get his dirty butt cleaned! Luscious takes his in the mornings.

7-8ish pm- is spent trying to get kids ready for bed, homework done, and dinner cleaned up. Most of the time I do this because they have too much homework to have time to help with chores (a way of the government preventing families from being families). This is also the time that Mr. Mom thinks we are going to bed! HA!

9ish pm- this is the real bed time I have for the kids. I can usually fit a hot bath in somewhere between 7pm and now. I get about 15 minutes of trying to drown myself while listening to all hell breaking loose and the Nugget screaming because I had to remove him from my tit to do this.

10ish pm- this is the real time I manage to get the kids in the bed and Beefy gives up because he took that nap late and wasn't tired at all. Mr. Mom is usually passed out by now because he gets up for work at 4:25 am.

11 pm- I usually manage to get some of the cleaning I tried to do earlier done and the kitchen mostly cleaned.

12 pm- I try to go to bed but usually end up laying in the bed nursing the baby while laying awkwardly around him hoping I pass out. It is also the time I remember that I didn't do something and get up to try to get it done.

1 am- after fighting myself and giving up on sleep I try to read or watch things I have DVR'd. Most of the time this is when Mr. Mom starts sleepwalking. Yes, I spend the next hour and a half trying to wake him up to go back to bed. I would love to say this isn't very often but when work gets crazy so does this and its often most nights. Some nights he's just sitting on the edge of the bed talking, others he's actually running around the house with me in tow trying to keep him inside and from waking the babies up. I fail at that last part most times. I then spend another 30 minutes getting Beefy back to sleep and the Nugget nursed again.

2ish am- finally get him back in bed but I am WIDE awake. It is so hard for me to sleep, always has been. You would think exhaustion would set in and knock me out but it doesn't. If you have ever had true insomnia you know the exhaustion I am talking about that doesn't put you to sleep ever. You just feel like shit.

3 am- this is the time my body decides it wants to sleep. I lay down and try to let it but I usually have to position myself weirdly around Nugget to try to keep him asleep in hopes that he will let me.

4 am- that moment when blissful sleep finally starts to try to overcome me...


Now next time you ask me what I do all day, ask yourself if you want that answer. Is it worth it to risk asking me that? Why have I not posted any blog posts lately? Because sometimes in life priorities must be arranged and on that list "blog post" falls last. Right after "get more sleep". Its not that I don't love ya, I just have a lot to do.

Love,
Mom