A Day In The Life Of Me

Fun with makeup. What a great way to top off the day!

Many people have asked me how I do what I do, how I make it through the day and how I manage as the mother of 6 small children. Most days it's just life, it's just what we do and though it's hectic, exhausting, and nonstop I make it through with some sanity left over. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids and I love how close in age they are, it's just hard right now. That's most days. Of course there are days where sanity is nonexistent.

Case in point, my Monday the 6th of December. It started out a little worse than most days. I couldn't sleep the night before and remember looking at the clock at 2:00 am and wanting so badly to be asleep. This is not atypical for me, but Adam woke up at 5:30 and I was unable to go back to sleep. So I started my day with about 3 1/2 hours of sleep which only made the 4 1/2 hours of sleep the night before that much harder. Never good. I got the kids off to school, did the dishes (I was too tired the night before to get the kitchen cleaned) and then around 8:30 I put "The Princess and The Frog" on for the girls and went to fold the 5 loads of laundry I'd been accumulating.

9:30 came and it was time to start moving. I took a shower, put the kids in the bath tub, fed the baby, got everyone dressed, hair done and ready to go to speech. This Monday was the first day of Gracie's speech and I wanted to be on time. We were set to leave 15 minutes early, plenty of time, when I went downstairs and found Dan on the art table drenched in water that the girls had been playing with. So, I rushed him upstairs, dried him, changed him, redid his hair, got his coat on and we were off. We were actually only 5 minutes late which was very surprising to me. Hannah goes to speech first at 11:30 and Gracie goes at 11:45. Gracie was NOT happy that she had to wait 10 minutes for her speech. She had been looking forward to speech for the entire week and she just couldn't wait 10 more minutes. She kept trying to go to Hannah's speech while I was trying to fill out paperwork. What a pain. Finally Amber, her speech therapist, came to get her and Gracie was more than happy to go back with her.

Kenny had a meeting in Pocatello for work and had to be at the grocery store to catch his carpool ride at 12:30. I rushed home to pick him up and found him on the phone for work, still not ready. He got off the phone, showered, got ready and we headed out around 12:30. Luckily the people waiting for him were just as late as he was. The real problem was that Hannah got out of speech at 12:15 and Gracie got out at 12:30 so I was really late picking them up. They had to sit there for 30-45 minutes by themselves and I hate not being there when my kids get out of an activity. I guess that's the price paid for having only one car.

We got home around 1:30 and it was time for lunch, naps, and getting ready for the kids to get home from school. Hannah had asked for macaroni and cheese so I sent the girls to play while I cooked. I thought I'd keep Dan up so he could eat it, but by the time it was cooked he had just about fallen asleep in his highchair. I decided to just let him go to bed, which, I'm sure, was just fine with him. I fed the girls, sent them downstairs to take a nap, (a miracle of the day was that they actually slept without any problems,) and then it was time to feed the baby. By the time I got everyone fed and in bed I had 10 minutes before Ben and Sarah got home from school, so much for that nap I wanted.

After getting homework done I went to finish folding clothes, sat down on the bed and was asleep in about10 seconds, there was that nap. I totally didn't mean to do it, but it was great. My wonderful kids let me sleep for about an hour and even though I had a ton to do I REALLY needed the nap. When I woke up I found out why the kids let me sleep. Sarah had been reading Harry Potter, her new obsession, Ben was playing the PlayStation, a definite obsession of his, the girls were playing downstairs, and the little boys were still asleep.

When I woke up I could hear the girls giggling downstairs and having so much fun. I thought how wonderful it was that they were having such a great time together. I went ahead and finished folding the clothes and then headed down to see what they were doing that was so fun. I should have checked a lot earlier. I heard the water running and the first thing I saw was a naked Hannah walking from the bathroom to her bedroom with a bowl full of water. When I went to investigate further I found Gracie, also naked, in her room playing with a bin full of water. They had taken the bin that holds their stuffed animals, dumped it out, and filled it full of water. Of course a 3 and 4 year old aren't the best of aim and the entire floor from the bathroom to the bin was soaked and all around the bin was soaked. They had also filled the Barbie swimming pool which I didn't know was full of water and I accidentally kicked over. I managed to stay calm and asked them what they were doing. They said they wanted to take a bath in their bedroom. Of course, what else would they be doing? At least they took their clothes off in preparation for the bath. We had a nice long talk about how we don't take baths in our bedroom and how water stays in the bathroom, then they helped me clean it up with some help from Sarah who managed to get her face out of her book when she heard all the commotion (Ben couldn't manage to break away from the game.)

Shortly after the cleanup Kenny called and needed me to pick him up. Dan was awake by then so I took him with me, leaving all the other kids home. When we got back I fed the baby, made dinner, and began the nightly routine. Kenny had to go back to work at 6:30 so I was on my own as far as getting the kids in bed. I had everyone get in jammies, clean up a little (yeah right,) and then head upstairs for scriptures, Christmas stuff, and prayers. While changing Adam into jammies the little girls and Dan were having fun in my bathroom. They found my makeup, yes I do own makeup, and were having fun putting it on. As I walked in they were just opening up the eyeshadow. Luckily I caught it before it got too bad, but it was the final straw for me. I was so tired and I just wanted to sit on the floor and cry. I sent the kids to the couch, composed myself, and grabbed the camera. Even though the makeup wasn't too bad, I decided to take pictures to document my over the top day. Again I had a talk with the little girls about staying out of my makeup and then scrubbed their faces.

Gracie got the most mascara on her. Nice look don't you think?

Hannah pulling a silly face. Typical Hannah. :)

After that it was time for scriptures, stories, and prayers. This never goes well, but we suffered through it and I'm determined to do it every night (OK not every night, but definitely most nights) in hopes that one day they'll learn to sit reverently and they'll remember something we've learned. I sent the 4 biggest kids to brush their teeth and put Dan and Adam in bed. Then it was story time for the little girls, and time to have Ben read to me. Finally at just after 9:00 I came upstairs and was able to sit down for a few minutes. I had to Facebook the pictures of the kids, document my day for everyone I know, and after that it was clean up time. Even though I was exhausted I decided to finish the dishes because I know how better my day goes when I wake up with a clean kitchen. Kenny got home late and we watched a little TV to numb the day. I fed the baby again and got ready for bed. I was so exhausted, but again, I couldn't sleep. It was past 1:00 when I finally dosed off, ready to wake up the next day and do it all over again.

Sadly this is not too much of an atypical day for me. Sure I don't often have first days of speech, drenched babies while trying to be on time, stress with one car, baths in bedrooms, makeup messes and so on, but it seems to always be something. I never get a chance to settle down and relax and sometime it wares on me. I've got to find some time in my crazy life to stop, but I just don't know where. I have decided to always do the dishes and clean up before bed. This helps my days go by so much smoother and I'm typically up anyway. As far as the sleep goes, I don't know that I'll fix that until our crazy life and stress goes away or at least diminishes a little. I've been working real hard on trying to be happier and not overreact to things my kids do. Being so exhausted and stressed all the time has left me not the happiest and I don't want my kids to remember me that way. I plan on blogging about this later so I'll elaborate then.

So that's one of my crazy days and how I made it through. I was quite happy with myself that I was able to stay fairly calm and not yell at the kids or break down and cry. I've been doing well with the nighttime routine with the kids and getting the kitchen and upstairs clean before bed. Now if only I can work on that sleep. :)