Three Day's Worth
So I guess even just throwing up a quick picture on the blog is too much to expect of myself on some days. What a hectic beginning to the week!
Monday is my youth orchestra day, and I think all you Mamas out there can attest to the fact that getting things organized and planned to leave your family for a few hours can be far more difficult than just staying home and doing the work yourself. M is a pro at handling the dinner and bedtime routine, so he makes it easier for me, but still Monday morning is always spent in our usual morning flurry of getting N on the bus, followed by me getting dinner in the crockpot, posting my sight-singing for my online class so I don't have to do it later in the evening, finding 30 minutes somewhere in the day to get myself showered and professional-looking, and getting the little ones down for naps early so they'll be awake in time for M to get them to dance class on time later in the afternoon-- and all by the time I need to leave around 2 PM. This Monday, the schedule was made even more hectic since N was home from school and I was repeatedly calling the doctor trying to get her in to be seen for a possible ear infection. We got the appointment, and then afterwards I always have to give the kids "five minutes to play" in the waiting room because our doctor's waiting room is so awesome with so many cool toys and books and they never want to leave, and "five minutes to play" turns into at least fifteen minutes of me persuading them all to leave and chasing down C and pinning her down to put on her winter coat, and then we had to go to the drugstore to pick up N's prescription for an antibiotic (yes she did have an ear infection) and of course it wasn't ready to go when we got to the pharmacy and we had to wait an extra twenty minutes and there was much exploring of the store and asking to buy Valentines candy and Mommy saying no to candy but then there was subsequent purchasing of popcorn snacks because it was almost lunch time and everybody was hungry. Then I put the littles down for nap, left for work, got home about 7:30 PM, ate my supper and pretty much fell asleep because I was so tired. (Oh and did I mention that I got up at 4:45 AM Monday morning to run seven miles? I am nuts. It's official.)
Phew.
Tuesday I always have huge ambitions of getting caught up on all the things I missed Monday, especially if we had a busy weekend before that too (and we did this weekend since we were in CT). There's always a mountain of laundry to be done and Tuesday is our grocery shopping day too. The trouble is, these huge ambitions almost never get realized, because Tuesday is a school day for L. I'm only at this late point in the year realizing that having L and school doesn't actually buy me any extra time, since she's only at school for 2 1/2 hours, and there's always a zillion things I have to remember since her school is so active (which is great!!) like did we remember to wear green for wear green day? or is our art project completed and ready to bring back for the spaghetti supper? By the time we get N on the bus and L to school, there's just about enough time for me to dash to the grocery store with C, purchase our week's worth of groceries, go home and get everything unloaded, and race back to school to pick up L. Then after we get back it's lunch time and naps and then I have about an hour to myself usually, and because it's Tuesday and the last day of the week for my online class before assignments are due, my students are always asking me tons of last-minute questions in the discussion forums about their homework before they have to turn it in. I have just about enough time to answer all of their questions (sometimes not even enough time to finish that) before I need to walk out to the bus stop and meet N. And then it's time to cook dinner, and I haven't even done our lunch dishes yet, let alone even looked at the mountain of laundry that is still sitting dirty in all of the baskets. Oh and plus Tuesday is playdate day with N's best friend from across the street, so sometimes I have to manage these two girls while making dinner and trying to finish up answering my students' questions (although yesterday I told the girls I had too much work to do and said we'd postpone our playdate to another day in the week... luckily they were okay with that). After dinner is made and served I usually work for another hour finishing up any last-minute grading I have to do and then it's bedtime for the girls (handled expertly by M after he finishes the supper dishes-- did I tell you he's a pro?) By 8:30 PM I was finished working, M and I were in bed and turned on an episode of Sherlock, fifteen minutes into which our eyes were closing.
Okay, sorry to go off on you there.
I've been beating myself up for not being able to accomplish more on Tuesdays, because like I said it's the beginning of a stretch of at-home days for me and I feel like, since I'm home all day, I should at least be able to get the laundry done. I always get to the end of the day feeling somewhat disappointed in myself.
But "home all day" with two girls in school is far different than it was with three little ones at home. Evidently I'm still adjusting to that.
I guess I needed to write it all out to realize that, no, there's simply not another drop of time that could be squeezed out of that day (unless I wanted to start laundry at 9 PM, and who does that??), and yes, it's okay that I didn't accomplish more.
And guess what? Today is here, and I've gotten four loads of laundry done so far, and my Mom is here to help and I'm getting lots of online work done. Despite the fact that there were a few of us who had no clean underwear this morning, we survived okay. Panic unnecessary. The silly things we worry about!!
Thanks for listening while I worked through all that. Moving on.
The pictures that I missed posting in my two-day absence from February's Post-a-Day activity.
Monday is my youth orchestra day, and I think all you Mamas out there can attest to the fact that getting things organized and planned to leave your family for a few hours can be far more difficult than just staying home and doing the work yourself. M is a pro at handling the dinner and bedtime routine, so he makes it easier for me, but still Monday morning is always spent in our usual morning flurry of getting N on the bus, followed by me getting dinner in the crockpot, posting my sight-singing for my online class so I don't have to do it later in the evening, finding 30 minutes somewhere in the day to get myself showered and professional-looking, and getting the little ones down for naps early so they'll be awake in time for M to get them to dance class on time later in the afternoon-- and all by the time I need to leave around 2 PM. This Monday, the schedule was made even more hectic since N was home from school and I was repeatedly calling the doctor trying to get her in to be seen for a possible ear infection. We got the appointment, and then afterwards I always have to give the kids "five minutes to play" in the waiting room because our doctor's waiting room is so awesome with so many cool toys and books and they never want to leave, and "five minutes to play" turns into at least fifteen minutes of me persuading them all to leave and chasing down C and pinning her down to put on her winter coat, and then we had to go to the drugstore to pick up N's prescription for an antibiotic (yes she did have an ear infection) and of course it wasn't ready to go when we got to the pharmacy and we had to wait an extra twenty minutes and there was much exploring of the store and asking to buy Valentines candy and Mommy saying no to candy but then there was subsequent purchasing of popcorn snacks because it was almost lunch time and everybody was hungry. Then I put the littles down for nap, left for work, got home about 7:30 PM, ate my supper and pretty much fell asleep because I was so tired. (Oh and did I mention that I got up at 4:45 AM Monday morning to run seven miles? I am nuts. It's official.)
Phew.
Tuesday I always have huge ambitions of getting caught up on all the things I missed Monday, especially if we had a busy weekend before that too (and we did this weekend since we were in CT). There's always a mountain of laundry to be done and Tuesday is our grocery shopping day too. The trouble is, these huge ambitions almost never get realized, because Tuesday is a school day for L. I'm only at this late point in the year realizing that having L and school doesn't actually buy me any extra time, since she's only at school for 2 1/2 hours, and there's always a zillion things I have to remember since her school is so active (which is great!!) like did we remember to wear green for wear green day? or is our art project completed and ready to bring back for the spaghetti supper? By the time we get N on the bus and L to school, there's just about enough time for me to dash to the grocery store with C, purchase our week's worth of groceries, go home and get everything unloaded, and race back to school to pick up L. Then after we get back it's lunch time and naps and then I have about an hour to myself usually, and because it's Tuesday and the last day of the week for my online class before assignments are due, my students are always asking me tons of last-minute questions in the discussion forums about their homework before they have to turn it in. I have just about enough time to answer all of their questions (sometimes not even enough time to finish that) before I need to walk out to the bus stop and meet N. And then it's time to cook dinner, and I haven't even done our lunch dishes yet, let alone even looked at the mountain of laundry that is still sitting dirty in all of the baskets. Oh and plus Tuesday is playdate day with N's best friend from across the street, so sometimes I have to manage these two girls while making dinner and trying to finish up answering my students' questions (although yesterday I told the girls I had too much work to do and said we'd postpone our playdate to another day in the week... luckily they were okay with that). After dinner is made and served I usually work for another hour finishing up any last-minute grading I have to do and then it's bedtime for the girls (handled expertly by M after he finishes the supper dishes-- did I tell you he's a pro?) By 8:30 PM I was finished working, M and I were in bed and turned on an episode of Sherlock, fifteen minutes into which our eyes were closing.
Okay, sorry to go off on you there.
I've been beating myself up for not being able to accomplish more on Tuesdays, because like I said it's the beginning of a stretch of at-home days for me and I feel like, since I'm home all day, I should at least be able to get the laundry done. I always get to the end of the day feeling somewhat disappointed in myself.
But "home all day" with two girls in school is far different than it was with three little ones at home. Evidently I'm still adjusting to that.
I guess I needed to write it all out to realize that, no, there's simply not another drop of time that could be squeezed out of that day (unless I wanted to start laundry at 9 PM, and who does that??), and yes, it's okay that I didn't accomplish more.
And guess what? Today is here, and I've gotten four loads of laundry done so far, and my Mom is here to help and I'm getting lots of online work done. Despite the fact that there were a few of us who had no clean underwear this morning, we survived okay. Panic unnecessary. The silly things we worry about!!
Thanks for listening while I worked through all that. Moving on.
The pictures that I missed posting in my two-day absence from February's Post-a-Day activity.
(Thanks for the Valentines, Buppie & Ellie!)
(I wasn't home when N opened hers, so no picture, but she was thrilled to get mail too!)
Here's Miss Pickle having her pickle snack on the way to school yesterday morning (she wanted to bring an open can of black olives in the car, but I persuaded her to choose a pickle instead... only slightly less messy):
...and singing her new favorite song. She lost a little bit of gusto once I turned the camera on and she got shy, but it's still cute:
Back again tomorrow (hopefully :)
Aww L has a beautiful singing voice!
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