School time is back in full swing. With the school day lasting a whooping eight hours these little chickadees are purty durn tired by the end of it.
I try to keep to a routine--I am by nature a very routinesk person. Back in the days of very small children I was very very good at keeping a routine. That, of course, as I said was back in the day. Today is today, today is not back in the day. But, we do try our best. Me and mine, we do much better when we know what the plan is...even when we are tired.
All five punks are in school full time this year. Might I just say that is a lot of information, stories, homework and junk to deal with when they get home from school at 4:30 in the afternoon. So, the "plan" or "routine" goes like this: they walk in the door and I am in the kitchen with a snack ready (they are starving), we have a snack and catch up on the day (slightly time consuming process), we then discuss who has what homework and go over papers for me to look at, they are then responsible to take care of any clean laundry and their back packs and we are off and running like a herd of turtles.
Now, bear in mind that two of the four nights a week we are not just chillin' at home...Monday is FHE and Tuesday is mutual. Which means we have to put everything into high gear in order to get it all accomplished. The older kids are quite self sufficient when it comes to homework, the younger ones not so much. The youngest one really not so much. We are in the stage of sitting and reading together (which I LOVE to do btw--but it takes time). In the midst of being engrossed in a first grade reader I am constantly being told 'one more thing I forgot to tell you about school' and 'just one quick question'. Throw in a nightly dinner, showers, and bed time extravaganza and you have yourself the makings of a three ring circus.
I am ready for them to come home every afternoon. Here's a little confession, (and for anyone that knows me well knows how strange this is) I have been turning on a little Pandora in the afternoons...been jamming out to a little Abba lately. Weird. I never used to turn on music. I have always enjoyed the quiet when it came, but it gets a little too quiet around here. Nowadays I make a snack with a little background music. What I am saying is that I am geared up and happy to see them every day.
However, my excitement seems short lived. By 8:00ish I am just about done in and I want to retreat to the mediocre mother world. The world where some one else puts the youngsters to bed and some one else finishes the kitchen and someone else makes sure everyone gets showered and has their homework done and someone else gets everything ready for the morning and someone else stays up until all the punks are nestled snug in their beds.
I am amazed daily at how quickly I run out of steam. It's quite pitiful really. Raising kids is exhausting, and don't let anybody tell you differently. It's fantastic and the older they get the more enjoyable it is to watch them turn into fabulous young adults, but it's a boat load of work.
Here's the deal-e-o...I don't live in the mediocre mother world. I may not be great at a lot of things, but I am a good mum. Although I do think those things pretty much every evening I don't actually do those things every evening. I keep going and get the job done. I think that makes me an A-okay mom. And I'm pretty happy about that. Plus I make a killer chocolate chip cookie....pretty sure that's worth a ton of points in the 'good mom' rule book.