Supermom

Lately it has come to my attention how absolutely amazingly hard our jobs as stay at home homeschooling moms are. Hard is so not the right word. Try worthy of every medal for any amazing job out there. However much work any person's office job is, mine is more. OK, maybe not any one's...maybe the president has a few more things on his plate. Maybe. But seriously, with a bundle of little kids at home full time and their education in my hands, holy smokes: MY PLATE IS OVERFLOWING. At least the president can delegate. And I don't think he has to scrub his own toilets. Or cook his own food. OR...Or...or...

I say this not in a state of self adoration but in a state of shock mixed with maybe a little big of Lord Help me. Did any of you other moms with several little ones ever wake up one day and realize this? I remember when #3 was born was the first time I started to realize kids were a ton of work. I've said before that I'm pretty sure I cried the first 6 months of #3's life. Now there were other reasons for that but I digress.

But lately with moving into a really old house (think 1895) that needs a LOT of work. Oh, it's a very nice house considering, but we have a ton of projects. But I digress again.

But seriously: 4 kids, 4 boys, produce A TON of mayhem!!! Last week I binned up every single toy in the play room. I checked every nook and cranny for toys. I put them all away in the basement and left out only 2 bins of toys in addition to toys that will always be left out like a bin of stuffed animals, the legos, and the blocks. SOME HOW I am finding spare toys EVERYWHERE. Good grief it's like they're marching out of the basement while I sleep!!! And no, my kids are not going down there. So I know I've just missed them and now am going to have to go back down there and continue to put away toys that are coming out of the woodwork.

So the toys, the endless toys and ENDLESS organization that must be done to keep this house from KILLING US ALL.

The socks. Stupid socks. Laundry EVERYWHERE.

The 1 yr old that was sleeping through the night FINALLY and now isn't. Again. And I'm one of those moms that will still nurse when they absolutely want it. I don't like night time, why would I expect my 1 yr old to? And when I'm not nursing him I'm up peeing for the other baby. And now I'm getting nauseous in the middle of the night. That is so not fun. And the insomnia... oh I hate insomnia.

Food. Good grief,  I live in my kitchen! And do you know I don't even own a regular vacuum anymore?! I have to use a shopvac because it looks like the floor is a turned over pig trough after every meal. I really don't know how this happens because while we're eating they really don't look that sloppy...I guess food just falls off their fork and onto the floor while they eat. sigh. I don't even put it away. It has a permanent spot in the corner of our kitchen so I can vacuum several times a day to keep the floor from turning into a dirt floor and to keep the fruit flies to a minimum so they don't kill us.

Lessons. Trying to figure out how to have even a few minutes of quality one on one with each kid each day. Training. Training. Training. Never. Ending. Training. Especially with the 2 and 3 year old age groups. And I always have at least one of those. I love my 2/3 year olds...but really...they're psycho.

Did I mention socks? I hate socks. I really cannot for the life of me figure out a way to keep the sock thing under control. They are everywhere and no one ever has any to wear! AHHHHHHH.

I know flylady. I know large family logistics. I know managers of their homes. And I know most of my friends would say my house looks fine and I know it looks fine but good grief, just when I think it might actually look good I turn around and it's like someone took my house, turned it upside down and SHOOK with all their might!!! And all the organization in the world and all the planning in the world has made me realize that no matter how organized and how scheduled my day is ( and mine is pretty over structured right now: just ask the sticky chart for each member of the family with post it notes for every half hour) it will NEVER be organized or DONE because with this many little people in the house life IS ALWAYS TENDING TOWARDS CHAOS.

So here we go again, in a few hours another day will start and we will take it one minute at a time and Lord willing I will be gifted with another amazing day getting to be the mother of these children that I don't deserve and can hardly believe are mine because they are just so awesome and maybe some how I will manage to stay ahead of it enough so the house does not eat us all.