Motherhood: A Day in the Life #5 – Holly

While I prepare a bowl of cereal for her and myself my 2 year old begins yelling “Mommy” from her bedroom.  That simply means she is awake but she is afraid to get up because she doesn’t know if it’s morning or not and she doesn’t want to get in trouble.  We welcome her to breakfast and I am grateful for these two siblings who love each other endlessly.  They are so lucky to have each other even if they end up hating each other in ten years *sigh*.  I drill my oldest on her spelling words because I have forgotten to work with her all stinkin’ week.  Thankfully she’s smart and memorizes well and she knows them all perfectly.

I am fortunate enough that my 6 year old’s best friend lives nearby and her Mom comes and gets mine every morning.  I do not take this for granted and am so thankful every single morning.  She is off to school and every morning I can’t help but think of the tragedy in Connecticut and pray my child has a safe day and comes home to me unharmed.

At this point every single day I want to crawl back into bed and sleep a few more hours.  All week I have fought this urge by sitting on the couch trying to figure out what I “feel” like working on when I am not organizing someone else. At 8:30 I get a call from my afternoon client saying he has to cancel.  I am bummed to not make more progress on his 8500 square foot house but I know we are doing well on time.  While that also means I am out money, I am happy to stay home today and let things go at their own pace.  I succomb to watching something on Netflix next to my 2 year old ball of fun and I enjoy every minute of cuddling with her.

Her and I spend a good amount of time later with different long handled cleaning brushes trying to fish the hot rod out from under the stove.  We find a lot of other things and she thinks this is a totally awesome way to spend our time.  I set up a coloring page and crayons for her thinking I’ll have some coffee and I’ll get some computer work done.  But I turn on a Death Cab for Cutie station on pandora at my desk (a rare thing) and she comes running wanting to “watch” my music.  I suggest I turn some music on in her room.  This ends up being a 30 min. music class where I belt out harmonies to “Farmer and the Dell” because it’s in my blood – she is the best audience ever. We end the jam session and she helps me make her some oatmeal, then burns her mouth and is mad at the oatmeal.

But hey, it’s after 10 so I’m suddenly more awake and can function a little more normally, at a faster speed and a little less cranky.

It’s Friday and that means my focus should be the massive amount of photo projects I need to catch up on and some laundry.  I also have some things on my list I didn’t get done on Tuesday -I have set up theme days for myself.  That means when I “have” time I know exactly how I should be using it, so I’m not wasting time trying to figure out what I should do.

As I am finally getting around to my focus of the day I realize my nearly three year old has been quiet for a long time.  I discover she has a mouthful of chewed up crayon!  Seriously?  At this age?  At least she has a rainbow of colors! She hasn’t done this in a long time and I don’t understand why she’s still doing it.  I take refuge in the idea that they are non-toxic since I can’t get her to spit it all out and I gagged her with my finger when trying to sweep it out.  Crazy little thing.  My first born never did anything like that.  Ever.  And I’m reminded how this parenting thing feels like a whole new ballgame with this kid.

It’s taking me far longer than I want for us to get dressed and out the door just to run an errand at Lowe’s.  I’m talking an hour! LQ, my 2 year old, is always strongly opinionated about what she wears and we finally get her dressed.   Knowing that when it’s naptime in two hours she will want to take all the clothes off to put her nightgown on never ever helps.  But how can I talk?  I tried wearing a turtle neck that felt like it was choking me so I changed.  I didn’t like the pink under tee I tried because I felt the neckline was too high.  I always feel that way so why do I keep it?  I tossed it into the sleeping clothes bin because it’s really soft and that matters.  Third try I am finally dressed and I take note I need to do a good job culling my closet this Spring.  I hate wasting time like this.  And now it’s lunch time.  We’re finally ready to leave but I’m starving.  aaaackkkk!  This is terrible!  But I laugh because LQ has interrupted my thoughts to inform me she wants more snow.  Just so matter of fact.  Like she wants more ice cream.

I am so wrong about the idea that it will be quicker to grab a bite to eat while we are out instead of grabbing something from home.  It takes another 30 minutes to grab lunch at Sonic and eat it in the back seat with LQ.  It takes another hour at the home improvement store because they don’t have what I need and that’s the second time this month.

We are finally out the door when I realize I need to empty the back of my van.  It is full of castoffs from my client. So, I have to swing by the thrift store to drop it all off.

On our way home LQ falls asleep.  This is very unusual for her.  I have to pick up angel child from school in one hour.  We run home and I quickly empty one shelf of the pantry.  What? Lest you think I’m insane, I bought a new tiered pantry helper and this kind of thing really gives me energy and I can’t wait to try it.

I head out the door 30 minutes before school lets out.  I never do that.  I am not one of those parents.  I usually leave my house 10 to 15 minutes after school lets out (I’m one of those kind) so I don’t have to wake LQ early and I don’t have to wait in line.

As soon as I get home I re-stock the pantry shelf.  I didn’t really save any space at all.  I can see what I have better though.  I moved a few other things around but not much.  If I’m not careful I can redo an entire space when I intend to just work small.  It’s just because I enjoy it so much, I simply can’t help making spaces work better.

I have no supper plan.  Some weeks I make time for this.  Some weeks I don’t.  Since my husband has been eating no carb I’ve found myself running away from meal planning when this is when I need it most.

I work on labels for tomorrow’s Tastefully Simple event up until I have to leave which means I haven’t made supper for my family.  I suggest to my husband there is frozen breaded fish in the freezer and some spaghettios for the the girls.  He doesn’t seem to mind because he can totally handle a night alone with his girls.  He’s such a good guy and I am so thankful.

I spend the next six hours, yes, I said six, with seven women from my emergent church.  We learn a lot about each other’s church backgrounds which are very diverse.  We share a few engagement stories and we discuss our reaction to our first kiss. We share some food and wine. And we laugh a lot. And we leave loving each other even more with a fuller understanding of where we’ve come from.

I walk in the door well past midnight and visit with my wonderful husband who doesn’t complain at all that I was out “all night”.