Good Morning...Let the Stress Begin!

Whoever said that Motherhood is not a fulltime job has never seen it from where I stand…

Daybreak, no not even that yet and already I hear my 7 y.o. son on the way to the bathroom for his morning ablutions. A split second later, my 5 y.o. daughter tap taps on the bedroom door: “Good morning Mama, can I use your toilet?”

And so begins another day.

Actually, that’s how a good day starts at our place.

On a bad day, I’ve been up half the night with one child or another. Or with the dog whining outside because he’s dragged his bed halfway across the back patio and tipped the sheepskin off it again. Or I’ve had one of my less pleasant bouts of insomnia with bonus night terrors because my Beloved forgot to lock the door again when he went to work in the middle of the night. (Ha! May as well hang a sign out the front saying “Come on in; unattended and unsuspecting woman and small children inside!”), and grudgingly greet the dawn with yet another headache from lack of sleep.

So anyway, back to the original, happier start to the day…

After they empty their bladders they open their arms to me for our traditional “morning cuddle”. If I’m lucky, my daughter also serenades me with ‘the morning song’ - a little ditty I made up to help wake the kids up in a happy mood (I’m yet to discover one that works on their father!); my son, being all of 7 years old now, is way too old for that baby stuff, of course.

And then it starts…“Mu-um, I wanna watch that show on TV”, “Can I have another piece of breakfast?”, “I don’t want that on my sandwiches”, “I haven’t had my medicine yet”, “Can I go to someone’s place for a playdate today?”, “Do you know where my hat is?”, “I was supposed to give you this note yesterday”, “Do I have to go to school today?”, “I feel sick”, “I broke my shoelace again”, “When’s dad coming home?”, “I haven’t got anything to take for News!”, “Do you know where my splint is?”, “Why do I have to go to school?”, “I really feel sick”, “There’s no toothpaste left”, “When can we have a lunch order?”, “I hate doing homework”, “We forgot to clean our shoes again!”, “Mummy, I really truly feel sick now”

After all that, we have the usual mad panic to get out the door and down to school before the assembly begins, deliver the bags safe to the classroom and my children safe into the hands of the teachers for the next 6 hours, often a quick stop in at the office, then I get to begin my ‘real’ work for the day.

Given an all-too brief period of time before the afternoon school run, I manage to do a casual job, run an online support group, check the secretarial details of just one of the committees I’m on, try to catch up with people I’ve been neglecting, try to pay bills I can ignore no more, run to the shops (being creative with the family meals on an artist’s budget), glance again at the online certificate course I’ve signed up for (and estimate just how many assignments I can squeeze in before the final deadline), run another load of washing through the front loader and dryer, attempt to fold and put away the stuff that’s done, unload then repack the dishwasher, empty the garbage bins, sort the recycling, check the mail, clean up after the kids, clean up after the dog, clean up after the husband, clean up after myself!

Once the kids are collected it’s empty the school bags, identify or simply throw out uneaten foodstuffs left in lunchboxes, assist with any assessment tasks, ensure the uniforms actually make it into the laundry and school shoes are somewhere they can be found the next day, provide afternoon tea, referee any arguments along the way, do the artistic hunter-gatherer thing in time for tea, bathe the kids, repack the dishwasher, feed the dog and put him out for the night, read with the kids, turn off any unused appliances, lock up the house, all while keeping the children quiet while daddy gets some sleep.

And once the other half and offspring are finally quiet at the end of the day, I find time to reflect on an old piece of advice a lady once gave me - count your kids, and if you still have the same number you started out with, congratulate yourself!

Then I try to manage some sleep before it all begins again.

Yep, if that aforementioned 'whoever' had to walk a mile in my shoes, I am sure that before too long they would take off at a run - in the opposite direction!

Jx
©2009