A day in the life of a Mom

I have this bad habit of reading everything and anything I can find when I get tired of reading my romance novels (or as Clint will call them my "educational" books). Today I was reading an article on moms and their "Dirty Little Secrets" and i thought to myself "Hey why not read the forums on this topic? I wonder what some of these "secrets" are?" So I clicked on the link for this topic and found some very interesting comments. Now I know that all women have their "secrets" on how to be a sane mom or their children, I have a lot of the same little secrets for myself to stay sane. So I didn't mind the read at all, I actually enjoyed the reading of the article as well as the forums. What I didn't like was the fact that the women out there who are so insecure in their own lives and wish for their secrets to remain hidden found it necessary to SLAM the other parents who were just stating their thoughts and feelings and what they consider their secrets. So I thought I would share my views on being a mom to four. My 2 youngest children wake up at roughly 7 am (sometimes its a little later sometimes a little earlier) and that's when its time for Mommy to wake up to get the cereal and milk and the glass of juice to go along with it ( for my 2 year old daughter she gets a glass of Pediasure since her eating habits are almost null and void some days), make the coffee, gather up all the dishes from the night before, fill the sink with dish soap (we don't have the luxury of a dish washer at the moment), tune the TV into PBS for the educational shows, smoke a cigarette while waiting for my computer to come on so I can get Blaid's school work for the day, find Blaid's pencils and crayons for his school work, and find the coffee cups for me and Clint for our morning coffee (Clint's on his days off or days when he goes into work later in the day.). Once my computer is done logging on I print out Blaid's papers for the day and set him up at the kitchen table to do his school work while Paige is set up with her dolls and her own papers, she likes to do color pages of princesses while Blaid does his school work and it helps her to feel included. Then its into the kitchen for me to start on the dishes which don't always get past filling the sink as there are always a number of things that come up, Paige pulls Blaid's hair or takes his crayons when he's trying to color what ever it is he needs to color, or Blaid needs help with his instructions, math, reading, or I need to check his work, or my favorite is when every five seconds I hear "Mommy I pooping my butt" from Paige, the phone rings, someones at the door, the neighbor downstairs needs help with some of her groceries in her car and I never complain because we love her dearly (God bless her she is almost 70 and she still does as much as she did at 50, the kids call her Granny Shirley), or there are days where I just don't feel like doing the dishes at all as I hate having to do them by hand but they do still need to be done. Every day Paige will ask me for a bath since she has finally decided she likes the water so long as she doesn't have to have her hair washed (up until 6 months ago she would scream bloody murder at the thought of a bath as she hated the water completely) so I fill the tub for her and Blaid since I don't like her in there by herself while I try to get some things done around the house, but I usually wait until Blaid has most of his school work done before I fill the tub for them, find them both clean clothes to put on after their baths and off to cleaning I go when things need to be done "right now" or on occasion I check my email, read articles online, watch a little TV (CSI, It Takes a Thief, Mythbusters,Charmed, or Tom and Jerry if I just want some background noise and don't really care what show is on), or pick up a book and read depending on how I feel right at that moment in time. Bed sheets don't get changed around here as often as we would all like since we have communal laundry and most days the washers are all full so we do a lot of our laundry by hand not to mention that takes time for it to dry after it gets hung up on lines we have hung up in the bathroom because in our lease it sates we cannot hang our laundry up outside to dry and when the washers are all full so are the dryers, it also saves on money to pay for the washers and dryers (having the money to pay our bills is a good thing so I don't complain about that plus our laundry is usually cleaner when we do it by hand anyway). There are 6 of us in the home so we do have a TON of laundry to do all the time anyway (I'm working on getting rid of the clothes we don't wear but being the pack rat that I am its not easy to throw things away all the time and gets quite painful for me sometimes). My older 2 boys are back and forth between my apartment and my ex husbands house so although they are old enough to do chores and have chores they are not always here to do them so Mom gets to pick up the slack and Blaid has his own chores to do as well but they are not quite as strenuous as the older boys or moms chores, and Paige only has her toys that she has to worry about but she is still to little to understand why she has to pick them up and still fights it. Clint does his share in the home as well he will take the time to help me with the dishes and the vacuuming, cooking dinner at least once a week, and taking out the trash, when Tommy(12) and Danny (10) are not here to do it, as well as the laundry and whatever else needs to be done so I can't say I do it all by my self as everyone in the house has a part to do and does it (with the exception of Paige who IS only 2 years old after all). but it still can get quite busy here every day at noon or so I make lunch, usually hot dogs or home made mac and cheese since it tastes better than the box stuff but we still eat the box stuff too since there are days when that's just so much easier than having to grate the cheese and then wait for it to melt into the pasta,milk and butter mixture, or even baking it like I have a tendency to do every now and then (tastes really good with hot dogs in it too when its baked or just mixed up on the stove top), I do a lot of cooking and baking not only because its healthier than a lot of fast food, but because we simply do not have the money to eat out a lot. We eat out maybe once a month if we are lucky as we have our bills to pay and lets face it to raise 4 kids, 2 of them close to being teens and one little miss who is very girly and prissy at times, its not cheap. We don't have "gourmet" meals we aren't rich and we damn sure don't have a chef to do all the cooking for us though there are days that I think "Man that would be nice" but we live ...we survive. It would be nice to be able to afford more in life but I made the mistake of dropping out of school at 16. I did get my GED and I have taken some college classes to better my education however I don't have a degree for anything just some college under my belt and still can only find a job that barely covers daycare for the 2 year old so I don't work. Clint works and he works hard. He had his CDL until his wallet mysteriously disappeared from the apartment and he had to send for a new license and the state of Arizona refused his copy of his medical card so they suspended his CDL but not his regular drivers license so that put a damper on his job opportunities. So instead of driving a truck like he enjoys, he is stuck working in a warehouse and not making as much money. When he comes home from work he is usually exhausted and his feet hurt so I will rub his feet with lotion for him to ease some of the soreness from them. I don't do it because I have to I do it because I want to. It really isn't so much that we have so much going on during the day as it can be tedious running after the kids most of the day and trying to find the time just to sit down for 2 seconds and think, so yes I will tell Clint "Baby... I need a few minutes to myself.... is that OK?" and I will either go hide in our room or I will go take a shower to have those few precious moments to myself and Clint sometimes will do the same thing. Ballance in our chaotic lives? Hell no there is never a ballance we just do what we can when we can. Finding the time to be by ourselves isn't always easy either as babysitters don't come cheap or easy to find a decent one. So we grab what time we can when we can and it can be very stressfull on a relationship. So I guess all I can say there is do what you can to cherrish the moents you do have and can find. Its not about being rich and its not about secrets its about finding the way to work it out and finding the way to make things work for your life style. Some people ar elucky enough to hire as many people as they could want or need to help them out and some of us can't. Clint and I talk it out when things get rough and we do just fine but there are days where things just don't work right and we argue but thankfully it doesn't happen as often as some people have it happen to them. I left my marige of 4 years because I was misserable in the marrige and I didn't think the kids needed to see me and him fighting all the time. I know thats not the answer to everyones problems so I cna't say that anyone whos misserable should just opt out of it just try to find that happy medium where you can work on it or make things work. Secrets and lies don'y fix the problems that are there. We have to be honest with our sekves and our significant others or it will die a slow and painful death. Well I guess I'm out of words for now so .I hope you enjoy the read here. Its long and its one of my babbles about things in life. Enjoy. Mandi