Where have I been? Why am I not blogging every day?
Let’s travel back in time to a day last week. It was the worst day of the week, but not entirely atypical of my days recently. Because, you see, I have four children, and three of them are enrolled in sports. Three of them are taking musical instruments. One of them has a social skills group. One of them has a medical appointment every week. One of them rides horses. One of them belongs to scouts.
I’m not exactly complaining. As a friend informed me, she didn’t tell me to have four children. But it’s rather wearing.
Typical bare-bones day would involve one child leaving for school at seven, another going to the bus at eight, the third going to the bus at noon, one returning at 2:37 (the bus is very punctual in Angelborough) and the other two returning at 3:15. Kiddo#4 will have had one nap in there somewhere, typically for 90 minutes.
Also at a minimum will be three children’s instrument practice, homework checks, basic cleaning (if you’ve ever seen my home, it’s very very basic cleaning) and cooking.
This is all doable and not worth complaining. But throw in three games and two or three practices a week, and you get a day like we had last week.
3:30: all the children have returned from school and are settled
4:05: everyone out the door where we head to…
4:10: McDonalds, where I buy dinner at the drive-through. We eat in the car while heading toward…
4:45: TenMilesAway, where I drop off one child fifteen minutes early for his social skills group. Then we bang a U-turn and…
5:25:…back down past Angelborough to NeighborTown, where one child is being dropped off for a softball game. Confer with other parent that it is okay to leave her there and other parent is in charge of her until one of us returns. Then back into the car with two remaining children…
5:45: …to head back home because the remaining child forgot his baseball glove and part of his uniform for his game. We then back out of the driveway and head to the park half a mile away…
6:00: …for that Kiddo’s baseball game.
6:45: My Patient Husband shows up with the child he retrieved from social skills group at 6:15. Then he gets back in the car and drives over to NeighborTown while I wait in the rain with Kiddo#4 for the current baseball game to finish up.
8:15: we’re all in the same house again, but Kiddo#3 is already asleep.
So, three kids with activities in three different towns at the same time.
No one told me to have four kids, and no one told me to sign them all up for sports. This only lasts a few more weeks, and somehow we’re making it work.
But in the meantime, I’m tired.
Thank you.
No, no one told you to do any of that. Yet, you did and do it. And it sounds like you do as well a job if not better than most (if we can believe everything you write :)). And I know from experience that the busy little schedule you’ve described doesn’t even remotely resemble what an actual day is like. The spilled milk, the accidents, the flat tires, the annoying phone call/sales person/relative/etc. It all adds up to a really amazing feat. It’s a wonder how a parent doesn’t drop dead at the end of each day.
What you’re doing doesn’t end with your little compatmentalized family. It extends into your community and from there into the world. And it makes us ALL better for it. Thank you.
I honestly think that as a mother, I’m barely adequate. 🙁
But as a taxi driver, I do respectably well.
You do great. If nothing else, your kids will learn to make, read and use schedules, and to arrange their lives so they will be there on time rather than blaming something better planning would have prevented — simply from watching you. (They’ll also learn that, sometimes, you have to make tough decisions. McD’s is such a hardship for kids.)
This time of year is difficult. The “all year” stuff hasn’t finished, but the spring stuff has started. Big Dance Recital (and Dress Rehearsal) is usually the first week of soccer here. Yucky decisions.
If they learn all that, they’ll learn it from my Patient Husband. I’m barely hanging on by my fingernails.
We’ve eaten more McDonalds in the last four weeks than we did the previous two years.
*gives hugs, cookies, and sincere admiration*
No admiration. I’m doing it, not doing it well. :-b
I think she’s making it up. 😉
You want a link to my husband’s iCal? 😉
That might be fun.
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