I awoke at 5:58 a.m. to the sound of my pre-alarm quietly going off. (I'm not sure what to say about that... my new phone has this smart morning function where it plays this polite little tune for 5 min prior to the REAL alarm going off with BLARING rudenss. It is, at the same time, kinda cool and kinda confusing.) By the time I dragged myself outta bed, it was about 6:08 a.m. I realized with some sort of ODD early-morning clarity that I could squeeze in a 20-minute bout on the treadmill if I hurried before the sleep cleared from my brain and I realized what I was doing. By 6:15 I was on the treadmill and moving along. 20 minutes later, dripping with sweat, I finished and jetted inside to hop in the shower.... (ssscccrrreeeccchhh... the sound of me braking quickly because) ...Auntie Marge was in the bathroom.... trying to maintain my patience over the fact that JUST at the EXACT brief window I had to jump in the shower she had to pee, I got my towel, stripped off my clothes and tried HARD not to tap my foot while I waited... and waited... and waited (in all honesty it was prolly only 6 minutes that I waited; HOWEVER, I had to LEAVE to take John to work!)
I hopped in the shower, got dressed, made and consumed a slimfast shake, grabbed a to-go cup of coffee, woke the children and jumped in the car by 6:58 a.m.! I was a bit frazzled, but so darn proud of myself that I had actually worked out BEFORE taking John to work that my frazzling quickly disipated.
I got John to MU by 7:20ish, waited for Novenah till about 7:40, had to JUMP outta the van and run inside to go to the bathroom (don't worry Dustin was with Novenah when this transpired!). Finally with my precious cargo properly placed, I headed home to find 4 little angels sitting on the couch with smiles on their faces. Their chores had been done, and they proudly announced, "The laundry fairies came while you were gone! They put away all the clean laundry!"
Thus began my morning.... Good, bad and indifferent all mixed together with the good still winning out. I raced through feeding Novenah while shouting out directives to my little angels.... we stopped and did devotions.... we cleaned up the living room and vacuumed so Novenah could crawl... and this was all before 9 a.m.! [Somewhere in the midst of this Auntie Marge casually announced that while she had to change her Depends this morning she did NOT have an accident; and therefore, did NOT need a shower. Why do I believe old people at this point????] I got the children set up to do their stations (computer, buddy work, phonics packet, etc...) and bounded down the stairs to do my work. Quick load of laundry (OHMIGOSH we are still DROWNING in laundry around here!) and then I was at my desk.
I spent the next hour and a half or so working. Dealt with a VERY snippy registrar and banged my head against the wall trying to get a third reference for someone when NONE of his references were calling me back... All of a sudden from above (not from God... from my upstairs) someone shouted, "Novenah's all wet!" SACAJAWEA! I forgot to change her after breakfast!
When I got upstairs to change her I realized she prolly hadn't been changed since she went to bed last night. POOR THING! She was wet to the gills! I changed her quick and put her back on the floor for her workout (she's learning to crawl and today she has been MOVING!) and headed back downstairs for a few more calls.
So far the day had been BUSY but not that bad.... All of that was about to change at 11:03 a.m. I had finished the bulk of my urgent work and needed to start feeding Novenah lunch so I jetted upstairs. The butcher block was pulled in front of the doorway to the basement as a precaution should our little jet-setting crawler get through the kitchen unexpectedly. As I was pushing the butcher block back into place, one wheel collapsed sending baby food, bottles, a little glass jar, my water glass, and the salt and pepper shakers clattering to the ground. There was broken glass, water, and ice EVERYWHERE! As I tried to lift the butcher block enough for Noah to get the wheel back under there, the wooden-cutting-board top of it just came off in my hands and the thing CRASHED to the ground again, nearly severing my toe. I was thinking, "Seriously??? Seriously???" But that was not the end. Noah helped me clean up the mess and get the butcher block thingy propped up against the wall, but the top part was still not connected and that wheel was NOT solidly in there. Round about halfway through the clean up, I had started to do the pee-pee dance so as soon as we got the butcher block settled I jetted for the bathroom, only to be greeted by a toilet seat COVERED in excrement... I reached for the bleach wipes to find poopy fingerprints all over the container. *sigh* (Again WHY do I believe elderly people??? They will say ANYTHING to get out of a shower!) Dancing in place trying not to pee my pants, I avoided the poop fingerprints and extracted a bleach wipe from the container. Cleaned the toilet seat... dried the toilet seat... and plopped down JUST IN TIME!
After washing my hands for WAY LONGER THAN THE HAPPY BIRTHDAY SONG I made Novenah's lunch, directed Noah to make Auntie Marge's lunch, commenced feeding Novenah (which was NOT an easy task.... she was WIPED out from all that crawling and from the fact that she didn't take a morning nap) only got 1/2 a bottle past her sleepy lips before giving up. I put Novenah to bed and went to deal with my sneaky 91-year old. "Auntie Marge, based upon the poopy evidence I am convicting you as GUILTY of indeed having an accident this morning. Your punishment is a SHOWER!" Okay FINE that's not what I said! But I wanted to! Seriously what is so bad about a shower???? I love them! I long for them! I remember my single-days when I got a shower EVERY SINGLE day with tears of nostalgia in my eyes! HOW CAN YOU HATE A SHOWER?!?!?!?!?!
I patiently proceeded through giving her a shower and then headed to the kitchen to do the dishes while teaching four different grades of math lessons. (Just a QUICK brag: Noah is FREAKING brilliant! I can't believe the algebraic concepts he is grasping as I teach him in broken little pieces of instructions while washing dishes, reading Hannah her math instructions, helping Elijah figure out what to do next and checking Jeremiah's figures... IN FACT all my children are BRILLIANT! The fact that they learned this morning in this crazy madhouse is AMAZING!) Anywhoos... so we finished up math (most of the way... my little class clown is still finishing up the last of his) and I headed downstairs for more work....
My head is pounding. I need a nap or a Starbucks or SOMETHING! About halfway through this blog though I realized that I finally knew why I was writing. It wasn't just to find sanity in my insanity. God wanted me to write this blog so he could whisper something to my soul, "Jami, why do you patiently handle Auntie Marge's clean-up, gently deal with everything Novenah tosses your way, professionally handle the bristly registrar.... but the ONLY time you lose your cool... the ONE time you raise your voice.... the part of the day where you turn in to an UGLY monster is when it comes to your PRECIOUS OFF-SPRING who so SWEETLY played laundry fairies this morning...." It seems I have patience for everyone but those I love the most these days... It seems I can put on a pretty, patient face for everyone but them.
And now I'm done blogging for right now. I have to go RUN to my babies and tell them that I love them.... tell them I'm sorry I'm not more patient with them.... tell them how RIDICULOUSLY sweet it was that they were the laundry fairies and PROMISE that I will do BETTER and save a little of my patience for when they are placing stickers over every visible inch of their skin, REFUSING to get their penmanship book, SCREAMING loud enough to wake the dead (but somehow miraculously not waking the baby) and using up ALL of my laminating sheets on their play money [yes ALL of those things also happened today.]
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| My laundry MANgels and Angel (those are supposed to be their halos) |
[Okay I paused... read this to them... cried while I read it... apologized.... kissed them all... so now I can finish the lesson part]
Jami's life as a lesson:
Save some patience, love, kindness, some of the GOOD STUFF for the people you love the most. I know that it is easy to let who we REALLY are and what we REALLY feel like hang out in front of those we know will love us NO MATTER WHAT, but don't you think those we love the most deserve a little of our best too?
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