March 20 [keeping it real]

Yesterday was just one of those days.

I spent the morning trying to straighten up the house – did a big load of laundry and even put it away for the kids.  I managed to get the upstairs vacuumed and several rooms picked up.  Katie was super helpful upstairs but when it came to putting away the clean dishes from the dishwasher – she refused.  all. day. long.  So she didn’t get privileges  – all. day. long.  She complained that she couldn’t stand.  She complained she couldn’t do it.  She just complained.  She can be stubborn, but her mama can be even more so.  Finally after hours and hours missing out on snacks, playing outside, etc… she finally did her job with a promise to do it the first time she’s asked in the future.  Yay, we’ll see about that.

Abigail texted me during lunch and asked if she could bring a friend home from school.  We’d talked about it the previous day and I was honestly fine with it, but usually something ends up irritating me when friends are over so I’m not one of those moms that encourage frequent playdates – or whatever you call those types of arrangements for teens and tweens.  We have early release on Fridays so the two of them walked in the door at 1pm.  Pretty sure I immediately tensed up.  I could tell Abigail was trying to keep their volume down low so they wouldn’t wake Drew up from his nap, but really how many kids are accustom to having nappers at home – um, very, very few.

My not-so-chipper mood may have been slightly influenced by the fact that Justin had decided to take the day off of work and accept an invitation by some random company to attend the NCAA tournaments in Seattle.  So while I was cleaning, folding, and managing a busy household and five children he was planning to spend the next 12 hours in a suite watching basketball while eating and drinking to his hearts content.  Thinking about it now, it really isn’t a big deal, but there are certainly days I wish I could just take an entire day to myself without a care in the world.  I’m struggling to even find myself a few hours in the next week to run an errand.  I love, love, love my job and wouldn’t want to do ANYTHING else or be surrounded by ANYONE besides my kiddos, but it can be stressful, demanding, and often thankless.  My to-do list is endless.

My carpet installer was supposed to come by “around noon” to fix our tack strip issue.  At 1pm I got a phone call that he’d wrapped up a job late and could be here in 45 minutes.  An hour later, a phone call that he had only moved about 2 miles in the last half hour, but would continue making his way if that was ok.  He arrived at about 2:45pm, spent 5 minutes hammering down the tacks at the entrance to the room and was done.  Say what?  That’s it?  He just spent over 2 hours making his way to my house to spend 5 minutes doing something I could have done.  I felt a tad bit guilty, but he was great about it.  Said he’s been in the business for 30 years because he does what he says he will.  And get this… he’s probably the most famous carpet installer in the world.  Really.  He’s been in all the hootie tootie homes in the NW including Bill Gates.  He was flown out to Chicago to do a job for Oprah.  This guy is no joke.  His resume was unbelievable.  And he spent half his day just to hammer down a few nails in MY house.

After driving the activity day carpool later that afternoon I came home to pick up Jason for baseball practice.  We were 5 minutes late – which is not how I like to roll.  During practice I spent a quiet hour in the car going through emails on my phone and even started a new book.  Abigail texted me and asked if she and her friend could make cookies.  Fresh cookies sure sounded good, but I made sure she understood that she was to do all the dishes and was to clean up all the mess.  Of course she agreed.  And of course the kitchen was still a mess when I got home.  And of course she dragged her feet about cleaning it up.

By now it was 7pm – no one had eaten dinner.  I heated up leftover spinach artichoke dip from a RS dinner the previous evening.  There were a few bowls of cereal eaten.  And a few cookies - Drew helped himself.

This is him shaking his head “no” at me when I asked him to get down off the counter.

The three youngest were in bed by 7:30pm and the girls were banished to their bedroom for the remainder of the night so I could have a quiet evening.  Abigail asked if they could not have a bedtime, and promised they wouldn’t stay up too late.  She still thinks 9:30 or 10 is a privilege so in an effort to be nice I agreed, with a warning that if I hear them it’s immediate lights out.  They did awesome til around 9:43pm, as I type this, when Carly’s rummaging in the laundry room lit my fuse – which upset Abigail – which irritated Carly – which cause them to point fingers, which made me spout off punishments, which basically sealed the day with a nasty little bow and I stopped typing and sent myself to bed.