More Lucy Than June

Wednesdays are playdate days. And I love playdate days.

It gives me a chance to hang out with some of closest mommy-friends, and the girls get to burn off some of their (endless) energy.

But don’t you know…it’s never an EASY day.

Wednesdays are also Stephen’s “long” days at work. Rehearsal for Sunday mornings happens on Wednesday nights. So when he leaves in the morning, the girls don’t see him again until the next day.

We always start the day slow. What am I saying? We start EVERYDAY slow.

The kids and I are not really that fond of morning. But I’ve GOT to get better about this. I have dreams and visions of starting my days before the kids are up. Of COOKING them breakfast, instead of pouring it out of a box or opening a package or popping it in the toaster. And maybe once Jack is consistently sleeping through the night, and I feel like I’ve had a good night’s sleep, I’ll be able to roll out of bed before someone starts asking me for that pre-fab breakfast that I so lethargically give out each day.

Occasionally, McKenna will come in at some ridiculous hour…I won’t tell you what I find ridiculous…you’ll laugh.

Anyway, I always think that I can make it to our playdate on time. It starts at the same time every week. 11:00. Different locations, but the same time.

This morning, I REALLY thought I had it. But it was one of those mornings that went something like this…

Kenni comes in our room whining for food…

Caia wakes up. Change diaper.

Feed girls their incredibly nutritious breakfast of…PopTarts. I threw in a banana and some vitamins to make myself feel better about it.

Get girls dressed. Give Caia her shoes. She throws them in one of the boxes in the dining room that I’m packing up clothes in. I have no idea where they are.

Baby wakes. Feed baby. Burp baby. Give baby gas drops.

Change baby’s diaper and clothes.

Figure out why the TV has suddenly changed channels and now we’re watching a Swivel Sweeper infomercial.

Decide I definitely need a Swivel Sweeper. Kenni’s convinced of it, too.

Search for ten minutes to find Caia’s shoes.

Baby needs a new diaper.

Caia needs a new diaper.

Wash bottles to take with us.

Load baby into car seat.

Load preschooler and toddler into their car seats.

Finally pull out of driveway.

Turn around before I even leave the neighborhood because I can’t remember if I closed the garage.

Leave driveway again.

Drive to ATM.

Drive to Chick Fil A.

Drive to another ATM.

Drive to McDonald’s because I forgot to ask Chick Fil A for a cup of hot water to make a baby bottle with.

Make it to the park an HOUR later.

Try to feed my child Chick Fil A food that’s been cooked in peanut oil while she’s sitting next to our friend who’s allergic to peanuts.

Ask to borrow sunscreen from Jill because I didn’t put any on my kids before we left.

Apply sunscreen…very unevenly, I later discover.

Feed baby again. Burp baby. Change baby. Ask to borrow Shari’s diaper wipes.

Change toddler.

Convince preschooler it’s time to go.

Load all three kids in the truck with Melissa’s help.

Drive 45 minutes back home.

I manage to get Caia down for a late nap. Jack goes down for another nap, and I decide to rest my back on the couch awhile.

Well, apparently, I fell asleep while “resting my back”. And I woke up to Kenni with red paint all over her hands, glitter in front of my face asking me if we could do crafts.

I told her that we couldn’t use glitter without glue. And I didn’t have glue.

Wouldn’t you know that she responded with,

Yes we do. I found it!

And proceeds to bring me the Tacky Glue.

After that chaos, Caia starts yelling for Mommy from her crib. Nap is over. And of course, Jack chose then to end his nap, too.

Both children demand food as soon as they are awake. Caia gets crackers. Jack gets…well, the only thing he can have…milk.

I search for Sesame Street on the DVR. But, a new-to-us TV is not yet set to record our favorite late afternoon program. Instead we can choose between Special Agent Oso or CSPAN’s House of Representative coverage. We choose Oso…don’t worry. It’s a Playhouse Disney show.

I manage to make a meager dinner of cheese sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…I don’t cook on Wednesdays. It’s my rule.

As soon as I get the girls settled in and I pop my microwave meal in to nuke, guess who starts crying.

I know he’s not hungry, so I figure he’s sleepy. But the minute I lay him down, he begins screeching.

Ahh, yes. It’s his evening bout with gas. I don’t know why it happens to him at the same time everyday, but no matter. A dose of gripe water later, he’s good to go. But I top him off with a few more ounces since he’s screamed off a few more calories at this point.

He falls asleep, and I don’t hear another peep until about 11:45. Fine with me..maybe the midnight feeding will carry him through till morning.

While I’m dealing with Jack, the girls have excused themselves from the table, and are now pouring water all over the bathroom floor. I was told by the elder of the two that she was getting water for her horse to drink. The other one just followed her in to “help”. She has a small obsession with water.

I clean up their mess, and plop them in the bath. Then I proceed to wipe down the sink and counter that is caked in their toothpaste. I guess the horse needed his teeth brushed as well.

I finally get them out, chase an un-clothed toddler around the house, wrestle her into a diaper and some jammies and get her in the bed.

The preschooler is now crying cause she’s way overtired, and then she goes into…Giggle Mode. After the whining passes, she enters into a state of hyper-hysteria. She chooses to exert her energy this evening by pounding on her sister’s door.

And apparently Caia understands this sisterly morse code because she starts giggling from the other side of the door. The giggling from Caia produces more pounding from Kenni and so on and so forth.

After Kenni finally makes it to her room…and no, she didn’t fall asleep for another HOUR, I washed the bottles, wiped down the table, swept the floor…

…and landed on the couch, unwilling to move for the remainder of the evening.

And I look around me. The house is a wreck. There are half-packed boxes in the dining room. There are unfolded clothes in the laundry basket, and a load in the dryer.

I have aspirations of an orderly home. I think I say that at least once a week…but in the aftermath of my day, I rest in knowing that my house is not my treasure. My house is not why I chose to stay at home.

This is why I choose to spend my days like I do.

..

Do I LOVE every minute of it? Well, don’t you think that I would be crazy to say I did?

“Why yes, I love screaming children who throw their food on the floor!”

“I just ADORE changing poopie diapers!”

“There is nothing better than not being able to use the bathroom by myself!!”

I may not LOVE every minute of it, but I CHERISH every minute.

Cherish is defined as “to hold or treat as dear”.

And I have a feeling that one day, I’ll miss those not-so-glamourous moments of my not-so-glamorous mommy life.

So, I choose to cherish…

When Stephen signed up for Facebook a few summers ago, I mocked him.

I once held a MySpace account, which I think is still out there somewhere. But it got hacked by someone who started sending videos of girls dancing around in their underwear from my account, so I changed the password. And forgot it. So, now I can’t even log back in to delete my account.

Anyway, he told me to sign up for Facebook, and I resisted. I told him that I didn’t have time for that kind of thing.

Eventually, I created an account. Since then, I’ve been hooked.

But…I am incredibly bad at Facebook. I’ll shed some light on this for you…

I LOVE Facebook, because I have reconnected with old friends that I might not otherwise have ever seen or heard from again.

And FB (as some call it) allows me to engage in one of my favorite pasttimes without ever having to leave my home. People-watching.

In the Land of the Facebook, I can people-watch you by reading your status updates. (When I phrase it like that though, it kind of sounds like borderline stalking…)

Mainly, I look at people’s status updates. I think it is so fascinating to see what people are doing and thinking. Maybe I should have majored in psychology.

I don’t care how many “friends” I have. And currently, I have  145 “other requests” on my account. I NEVER, EVER look at those things. I think I’ve been asked to be a pirate 14 times or something. And I’m not interested in which Disney character I am.

But, I DO care if you send me a friend request! I really do! It’s just that I see it come through my email, and then I think, Oh–I’ll make sure I remember to add them when I get online. And then I forget. And I never look at that little box in the righthand corner that tells you that people are just dying to be your friend…so the requests just sit there. And by the time I get around to checking them, I think they’ve probably been sitting there for weeks, and now all those people think I’m a snob because I didn’t accept  them as a friend yet.

Oh, the stresses of Facebook.

Even worse than the friend requests that I forget about are the messages that people send me.

I read them all. I do! And I think, When I have more than 2 minutes, I’ll make sure that I send them a lengthy response.

And then I forget. Currently, FB says I have 63 un-read messages. But I’ve read them all…but it was on my email, not the actual Facebook website, so they still show as unopened.

All of this to say, I have HORRIBLE Facebook etiquette. But I have only the best of intentions.

Rest assured that if you are my Facebook friend, I know EXACTLY what you’re doing at any given moment during your FB day. (Insert Stalker Laugh here…)

I just can’t remember to respond to anything you have to say to me. My brain cells are rapidly depleting as we speak…three young children will do that to you. The other day, I couldn’t remember my own PIN number to my debit card. I kept re-entering the wrong number, and the system eventually froze my card and alerted my account to possible fraudulent activity.

Is there a quiz/ad/piece of flair/present I could send/SuperPoke feature on Facebook that improves your memory? Now, THAT I might be interested in.

Well, after many months hiatus, I am back to my old couponing and bargaining ways…

I haven’t made a huge grocery store trip yet, but tonight I stopped at Publix for the BOGO’s (that’s BUY ONE GET ONE in coupon lingo). In fact, I waited all day to make this trip…isn’t that sad? I longed to see my cash register receipt brag to me about all the money I had just saved.

I hit up the pharmacy first, because I needed to pick up Jackson’s prescription (which, I might add, I ended up getting for free due to some good insurance finagling by the pharmacist…don’t worry, it was legitimately free…we overpaid, insurance lapsed, dosage changed, blah blah blah).

While he was working out deals with the Big Boys at the insurance company, I went browsing with my list and coupons in hand.

I should rephrase that. I do not BROWSE when grocery shopping. Rather, I have a very targeted list that includes non-negotiable quanities of certain items.

Here’s a picture of my loot…

And the receipt…

I ended up with 3 boxes of pasta, 4 boxes of Quaker granola bars, 2 6-packs of Yoplait yogurt, 2 32-oz bottles of coffee creamer, and 1 teeny bag of decaf coffee. That was my impulse buy…

When the cashier rang up my bill, the total came to $12.04!! I saved more than I paid!!!

Now, in coupon world, you never know if you’re going to get a coupon-friendly cashier. Especially when you print off internet coupons.

But my cashier was not only coupon-friendly, she was a fellow Bargain Hunter. She told me about some other coupons and where to find them!!! AND, she told me how once she had bought 12 bottles of A1 Steak Sauce for a grand total of $1.20!!!

What do you do with 12 bottles of A1? I don’t know, but I was thrilled for her!!!

I guess you could give them away at every cookout you attend over the summer…

Ah, yes. I walked out with that receipt grasped firmly in my trembling hand. (Okay, maybe it wasn’t trembling…)

But there is nothing like the rush, the excitement, the unexplained satisfaction in cheap groceries…

And, to top it off, next week when I transfer my prescription to a different pharmacy, I’ll end up with 2 $25 gift cards. Can we say FREE DIAPERS???

One last thing…here’s some super-cuteness to round out your day.

McKenna wanted to be Horton the elephant, so she created this out of my packing materials…

And here’s the younger two, just hangin’ out, swappin’ stories and all…

My sweet mother in law has an unspoken tradition that I love.

Every Easter, she buys the girls their Easter dresses.

It started with McKenna’s first Easter when she made her an adorable Winnie the Pooh dress. She was only three months old at the time, and it was absolutely PRECIOUS. Since then, every year, she gets the girls their Easter outfits.

When I was little, I always WANTED an Easter dress. The kicker here is…we didn’t go to church. There’s really not much need for an Easter dress when you’re not going to Easter services somewhere, right?

Well, not necessarily in my mind.

See, every year all of the cousins, and second cousins, and third cousins twice removed would all gather at my great-grandmother’s house for Easter lunch and a huge Easter egg hunt. And all of those cousins would have the prettiest, ruffliest, frilliest (by early 1980’s standards) of Easter dresses. And I…well I was in my shorts, T-shirt, and play shoes.

Even as a little girl, I felt the sting of not being “good enough” where my clothing was concerned.

Now, I’m not sure why all those cousins parents didn’t bring play clothes to change into, but I guess that’s beside the point. No need to be bitter after all these years, I suppose.

Of course, I vowed that my little girls would have those pretty Easter dresses. In my attempt to undo years of unacceptable Easter attire, my children would have what I did not.

So, thanks to my gracious mother-in-law, my little girlies have that. And I’ve never really expressed how grateful I am to her for that. (So, if you’re reading this Brenda, THANK YOU for this priceless tradition that you have created with my girls! I love you, and I am so thankful that my children have such a wonderful treasure in their GiGi!)

Of course, I went to bed on Easter eve with the girls dresses and shoes laid out with care. Hairbows picked to match resting atop the beautiful polka dotted frocks. Jackson’s outfit was laid aside for him as well. Everyone went to bed freshly bathed, ready for the adorning of their holiday clothes.

But as I laid down, confident that my children were going to be picture-perfect cherubs that surely people would just line up to take pictures of because they were so stinkin’ adorable, my own insecurities were rising to the surface.

It just wasn’t in the “budget” to have an Easter dress for mommy. In years past, B.C. (before children), I bought new Easter clothes for myself. And shoes. And probably a purse. It may not have always been “springy” or fancy, but it was new…and it fit.

So, that night, I dreamed I was back in high school. (Don’t all good nightmares start that way?)

Anyway, it was prom. And I didn’t have a dress. So, I went in…get this…a white shirt, a blue jean jumper, an orange TIE (what?! I don’t know…), and a purple cardigan. Talk about lovely. I felt pretty confident in the fact that I would NOT be voted prom queen.

Of course, as dreams go, our prom was in an unusual location. It was…ummm…in the grocery store. (What does that say about the fact that I find going to the grocery store an exciting outing that I should get excited about?) The dance floor was in the frozen foods, by the way. And the buffet was next to the butcher’s department. Yum.

Well, as I entered, there were “guards” standing at the door, separating people based on how they were dressed. If you had the fancy clothes, you went to the left. If you had the shabby clothes, you went to the right. The people on the left had beautiful cakes and beverage fountains, and chocolate covered-everything. The people on the right had Ritz crackers, juice boxes, and Cheez Whiz.

I have some serious insecurities, people. And I’m 33 years old. I really thought I wouldn’t deal with that when I got “old”.

Here’s the deal. I have three kids. I had a great career as a teacher before I had them. But I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE staying home with them and wouldn’t trade it for the world.

And I know it is what is right for our family right now.

As a teacher, I didn’t doubt myself like I do now. But I have crazy insecurity in almost every aspect of my mommy-life.

Even down to what I wear.

So…how does my Easter Dress Saga end?

Well, I woke up on Easter morning. Showered and dressed while all the kids were asleep. That in itself was weird…

And I managed to find a dress I bought last year for a wedding we went to (that would be yours, Katie O!), and it fit just fine. I dug out my white shoes that I bought for it, and I felt so much better about myself than I did before I went to bed.

The children, of course, did look adorable (although, I was the only taking pictures of them…). And yes, I’ll make sure I post pictures when Stephen gets them off of his camera.

All in all, we had a wonderful Easter with Jack celebrating his first major holiday, Caia enjoying  her first Easter egg hunt, and Kenni realizing that from now on she has to SHARE all the Easter eggs with her siblings.

Often, Stephen and I will look at each other and say, “Yep. We’re THOSE parents.”

The parents who let their kids run inside of Dairy Queen, chasing each other and laughing loudly while other patrons glare at us in disgust.

The parents who send their kids to school in scuffed up shoes, or to church without any shoes because I thought they were in Daddy’s car and he thought they were in my car…

The parents who let their kids run outside in their pajamas and splash in puddles…

The parents who forget that today was their child’s school Easter party and we were supposed to send apples, and so after we drop her off late at school, we have to run to WalMart to purchase said apples…

When I brought my first little angel home from the hospital four years ago, I had this image of the kind of mommy that I would be to that little girl.

I was going to hip and chic and cool and lose all that baby weight within six weeks. (Anyone laughing yet? Because, four years later, I STILL haven’t lost all that baby weight…)

My little angel was going to be neat and clean and free of snot at all times. The clothes would all match perfectly and the hairbows would be chosen with the greatest of care.

I was going to have it all together with a neatly packed diaper bag and a stroller free of cracker crumbs at all times.

Yeah stinkin’ right.

The very first time that I left the house with my precious new bundle, I FORGOT that neatly packed diaper bag and had to stop at the store for diapers and wipes and pacis and….

Take a peek in that same diaper bag today and you will find leftover french fries that someone refused to eat, but doggone it, I had PAID for those things and at SOME POINT SOMEONE WAS GOING TO EAT THEM!

And at least once a week, someone doesn’t have diapers packed for them in that bag.

AND when MY child entered school, I was going to be room mom and send in treats and be the first to volunteer for everything.

So, when my firstborn entered preschool this year, I signed up for it all. I was going to send in 10 things from the “wish list” when other mothers had signed up for one or two.

I baked pumpkin bread for the teacher on the first day of school, and a few weeks later, I sent in banana bread.

Then, I had my third child.

Now I’m not blaming it on Jack. Rather, I am blaming it on the fact that I do not have it all together like I thought I would.

I forgot about Teacher Appreciation day, but fortunately I had an “emergency gift” that I could send in.

I forgot the egg hunt, the silhouette picture day form, and ask me when the last time Kenni was on time was.

Yes, I have a long way to go to become that perfect mommy and wife and woman. The Proverbs 31 woman mocks me at times, I think.

Maybe someday I’ll get there, but for now, I’m having to just let it all go and do the best I can while relying on God to see us through our day to day activities.

I must end this post for now. One’s in need of a mommy snuggle, one can’t find her pajamas, and the other one’s throwing something that I might need later in the trash.