Friday, March 28, 2014

I get a lot of "How many kids do you have?!?  And you work?  How do you do it?"  Well folks, I think I do it the same as anyone who has one kid or elderly parents or three jobs, or four dogs, but you can judge for yourself based on a typical day in the life....

6 am – Alarm goes off and New School on 105.3 The Fan is covering college basketball.  Ugh.  Boring.  Snooze.

6:34 am – Last possible moment to wake up and get out by 7.  Contacts in, pajamas that double as gym clothes still on.  Wake up kids who haven’t been playing Minecraft since 5 am.

7 am – Impressed that the boys got the trash out with one reminder and Corda remembered her shoes (we have issues with that).

7:37 am – Drop off Mac.  “Forget” to take the pacifier out of her mouth at day care.  Will probably either be lectured about that later or the pacifier will somehow disappear.

7:45 am – Drop off bigger kids.  Make 8 point turn to get out of the teacher parking lot because I long ago gave up the fight against the parents who park in the circular drive.

8:10 am – Park in garage near gym door so that I don’t have to walk through the office lobby in pajamas.

8:11 am – Make several trips between 5^th floor gym and 15^th floor property management office because my badge won’t open the gym and the various reprogramming efforts and replacement badges are not working either.  I guess this is my workout.  Pushing elevator buttons and keeping calm with property management counts, right?  Not sure how many partners see me with my Fort Worth Cats baseball cap on.

8:51 am – Shower and dress. 

9 am – Sit on gym floor and act professional on conference call because there wasn’t enough time to get upstairs.

9:45 am – Show up at my desk fashionably late.  Work.

4 pm – Explain to a coworker that it is not mean to take my younger children to watch my older child play baseball.  I think they’ll make it.  They might even learn something about teamwork, effort, goodwill, or, if they are not interested in the game, how to occupy themselves while getting fresh air for two hours.

4:15 pm – Contemplate how many errands I can get done before picking up the kids without being late vs. after getting the kids without hearing the chorus of “I’m starving.”

4:20 pm – Head to garage.  Hear Pompeii on three different radio stations while avoiding Katy Perry songs.

5:05 pm – Arrive at the good Walmart.  Go for spinach and come out with groceries for the weekend because I am on a roll.

5:42 pm – Arrive at Boys & Girls Club for the boys.  Hank is in the middle of a book about the history of the Rangers.  Dodge ridicules him for reading about a team we don’t like.

5:56 pm – My side of the conversation goes like this: “Be nice.  Don’t call your brother that.  You know he is not dumb or blind.”  Arrive at day care.  Girls are ready to go.  Mac has pacifier.  Her teachers are getting soft like me!

6:00 pm – Corda criticizes me for being the last parent to arrive.  Sings Let It Go, even though she has not seen the movie.  Explains that she learned how to tie shoes.  Yells at her brothers to stop talking about Pokemon so she can talk about her day. 

6:25 pm: Stuck behind four car accident.  Kids 1 and 4 are asleep.  Corda is still talking about friends, tornado drills, library books, what day it is, and how to spell made up words like “yellowteen” – a number that is also a color!

6:35 pm – Stop at Walgreens to pick up pictures for Hank’s science project.

6:43 pm – Drop off Hank two blocks from home to run the rest of the way for his exercise.

6:45 pm – Arrive home, start laundry and dishes left over from yesterday, and fix dinner (shrimp and spinach salad).

7:20 pm – I am the only person who spills something during dinner.

7:30 pm – Prep food for tomorrow.

7:45 pm – Decide to do the elliptical.

7:47 pm – It is brought to my attention that the baseball uniform for tomorrow is still in the dirty clothes.  Get off elliptical, step on little green army men.  Start more laundry.

7:50 pm – Bath time for girls.  Opt for sit-ups while they splash.

8:05 pm – Notice several more teeth that Mac is getting.  She goes to bed without a fuss.  Good baby she is.

8:15 pm – Hank picks 42 for movie night.  He spends the next two hours playing Minecraft instead of watching.

9:00 pm – Get emails about requests for calls over the weekend.  Wonder if I should schedule those during the baseball games or the birthday parties.

10:11 pm – Work on a project that others didn’t want to do.  Brownie points for me?

11 pm – Lights out.

2:10 am – Lights on.  Baby awake in the middle of the night for the first time in months.  Goes right back to sleep with some milk.  Check for sleeping locations of other children in case we need to evacuate in an emergency – Dodge and Hank in their own beds (very odd) and Corda on the downstairs couch (her new thing).

5:15 am – Alarm for hubby to get up for work.  Consider elliptical.  It will still be there in a couple of hours.