Friday, February 12, 2010

Time for a beer

Sometimes I wish Moms could just call a personal timeout. Just to be fair, we should have this priviledge every quarter (although I'm sure we would all be much better moms and wives if we had this opportunity on a weekly basis). Anyway, when we call "timeout", a Supernanny-type figure would whisk into our home, play and entertain the children (without electronic devices such as a TV, Wii, or Nintendo DS) AND clean up after US. Today was just one of those days that I wished for a personal timeout.Unfortunately, Jo Frost did not enter my home and give me respite. Above is the picture of my kitchen at 8:30 tonight. A dirty crockpot on the counter with caked on spaghetti sauce. Dinner dishes stacked in the sink. Tortellini package in the other sink. I dare not even go into detail about the other counter. Let me just say, we had eggs and hashbrowns last night for dinner and I had not yet cleaned the stove and counter.

Back to my day. It started out with a young man crawling into my bed at some middle of the night hour. Unfortunately it was only Mason. I didn't feel like getting up, walking him back to his room, tucking him back in, and arguing with him...so I let him stay. The only condition was that he couldn't move (so that I could get him to fall back asleep). His idea of "snuggling" is to have at least one of his body parts touching you. Luckily he fell back asleep rather quickly - only to be followed with his "mild" (ha ha) sleep apnea snoring. When my alarm went off, I quickly showered and got ready for work. After preparing breakfast, lunch, snacks, and cleaning the table, it was time to go to school.
Let me take a quick break for two small points:
1. Today is the day before mid-winter break, which means Valentine's day parties at school.
2. Mark is out of town.
3. The kids and I leave for Dallas tomorrow morning (where they received 12 inches of snow yesterday).
Back to the morning. As we are exiting with lunches, backpacks, coats, and the beloved Valentine's cards, Lauren takes the opportunity for a quick "check list". Mind you, it was nothing even about today. It was in preparation for the airplane. Did I pack her Nintendo DS. I quickly advised that I had (well, since I had). Unbeknownst to me, I must be frequent tall-tales teller. She raced to her bag to verify. She didn't see the DS in her travel backpack. WIth her anxiety climbing quickly, I turned a 180 and marched to the backpack to show her that YES, it was in the bag. UGH.
After dropping everyone at their respected educational facilities, I went to work. Good day. Had to leave early to get to Mason's class party (as I am the class photographer). The party was fun. Great crafts, games, and even crazy dancing. Mason's first station was the cupcake decoration table (shocking). He started to eat it, but the music station started. He couldn't wait and calmly finish his cupcake - he had to bolt to the dancing (since it was to Alvin and the Chipmunks). He eventually finished his cupcake, danced a bunch more, and played a very brief game on valentine's bingo (frankly, I think the very sweet mom in charge of bingo picked his words, so he could finish bingo more quickly and head back to dancing). At this point, Mrs. Hallock, his wonderful teacher advised him to go to the card-making station. He agreed without a fuss (I'd tried getting him over there 3 different times already). He made the quickest valentine's card ever (and messiest) and returned to dancing.
After his party it was back to Lauren's school. We waited for her with Zoe (the dog) in the car. Since we drive two families home on Friday, I really wasn't in the mood to play "share Zoe", as she is flung between the middle and back rows, so I chose not to pass her around. After dropping off the kids, we drove Lauren to sibshops. After dropping her off, Mason & I headed to Mom and Dad's to change the cat litter. Lovely Zoe took this opportunity to have an accident on the floor. After clean up, we headed back home to dump off the diarrhea-dog.
Scruffy Mason was due for a haircut, so we zipped to Hair Masters. Next was QFC for "Stolpa snacks" (as Meghan calls them) - rations for the airplane, because I refuse to pay $5 for my kids to each have a few crackers. We came home, had dinner, gave Mason a bath, went back to pick up Lauren and two other kids from sibshops, drop off two other kids, and head home. Once home, I hurried everyone to bed. In the process, Zoe had another episode of the rrhea, which Lauren proceeded to step in and scream at the top of her lungs. As this was going on, I was in Mason's room trying to fix the closet doors (and yelling in the process due to frustration) that he had knocked off the track. I finally had the doors in a somewhat safe position (but not back completely on track). Lauren had hopped to the bathroom and was now crying. Why? Because I yelled at Mason for breaking his closet doors. I really wasn't in the mood for snuggling at tuck-in time with anyone, so I hurried everyone to bed. Lauren stops me to verify that I would forgive Mason (of course).
With everyone in bed, now the dogs are barking. I can't let them in the house as I need to decontaminate the area of the accident, so I lock them on the deck. Now, I can finish up a few things before I sit down to catch up on Thursday's shows: sweep the kitchen, mop, wash the dishes, load them into the dishwasher, clean the stove and counters, vacuum, fold laundry, start a new load of laundry, clean up Mark's side of the garage (since he's coming home), get the kids DVD's for the plane, pack Mason's pulse oximeter........and drink a beer. Where is Jo Frost when I need her?!

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