Here’s a picture of the twins and me this weekend. I took them on a “date” and part of that included trampoline-bungee-jumping at the mall. Notice I look sane, happy, and not like a lunatic? Please keep this image in mind as I tell you about my day yesterday. The day when I didn’t ACT sane or happy.
5:15…Wake up! M was flying out for D.C. so I got up to see him off, bake muffins, blog, finish cleaning for the housekeepers (oh, the irony), pack lunches, and put away laundry.
6:30…The kids straggle downstairs after not enough sleep. We had been at a church thing the night before and they didn’t get to bed until almost nine. SCANDALOUS for Hergenrader Kids, who wake-up before the sun every morning.
7:30…In full Morning Mode [Shoes on! Brush your teeth! Why are y’all spreading toothpaste all over? Hurry up! Can I button that for you? Yes, you have socks. No, you can’t wear flip-flops. Why are you lying on the couch? You need your back-pack. We have FIVE MINUTES! Stop crying. Buckle in. Put the rest of your clothes on in the car!]
8:20…Drop-off the three older kids at their respective schools. The twins have to do the Walk of Shame and go through the carpool line since Nate is still in his pjs and without shoes.
8:30…Nate and I go to the gym. I wish I could say this is where I do my Hot Yoga or whatever, but that would be a lie. This is where I order my six-dollar breakfast and bribe Nate with a four-dollar smoothie to go to the Child Care. Then I write in the Cafe. And then I pick him up, without working out. Talk about the Walk of Shame.
9:30…Errand running with Nate that includes, but is not limited to… searching all over the Houston area for a Girl Scout store. FINALLY we found it in a small shed in Brookshire, Texas that was clearly labeled as a United Way Building. This is a cruel joke for someone who has to regularly map her way home from less than a mile away.
11:30…Hunting for supplies for a PTL event and visiting restaurants for Spirit Nights. Throat is ticklish, which has always been my harbinger of sickness. Begin incessant prayers for God to spare me the strep throat going around.
1… Back home to wrestle Nate into a nap. Literally, wrestle. The kid has discovered his big-boy-bed freedom, and it takes constant supervision and good upper body strength to keep him horizontal. Neither which I have (see 8:30, at the gym, when I was writing instead of working on my upper body strength).
2… Nate naps for ten minutes–and then spends the next hour screaming and “transitioning” from his nap. After getting smacked in the face one too many times, I may have told him to “figure it out yourself” and left to eat Nutella from the jar.
3… Leave to pick up the twins. Even with snacks for them and fun Kindergarten questions, they’re also transitioning. Their transitioning includes lots of interrupting and whining. But, thankfully, no hitting.
3:30…Park at a froyo place by Catie’s school and corral the three little kids into a little parade to walk over to get her.
4…Back to the froyo place for a quick snack and for Catie to do her homework. Throat and head are killing me, Sam is looking for a reason for a meltdown, Elisabeth has developed a nagging cough, and Nate has had three liquid diarrhea diapers today. We’re not doing well.
4:30…Catie to Girl Scouts. Have I mentioned I’m not a joiner? How are we suddenly one of those families that’s running around from activity to activity?
5:30…After a quick visit to our house to drop off the kids’ backpacks, load up on Tylenol for all sick parties, and have some time-outs for the whiners/fighters, we’re back over to pick Catie up.
6….Horrible idea to go through the ChickFilA drive-thru for dinner. I could write a BOOK about ways in which the ChickFilA drive-thru brings out the worst in every sinner and saint on God’s green Earth. Seriously. The place needs parking huge enough for a shopping mall–and about fourteen drive-thrus to accommodate the crowds. Especially if one of the crowd is a minivan with four hungry kids who JUST WANT MOM’S ATTENTION!
And then, I don’t know how this happened, the worst moment of the day filled with all these other moments. I was waiting in line (for ten minutes now) and could see a shiny black Lexus inching forward from the side. I figured she was trying to pull through to park, so I rolled down my window to tell her to go ahead.
She rolled down her window and started yelling, “I’VE BEEN WAITING LONGER THAN YOU!” she screamed. “YOU HAD BETTER JUST LET ME IN BECAUSE YOU CAN’T EXPECT TO CUT EVERYONE!”
It was like biting my lip or stubbing my toe. The painful shock of someone so angry at me made floods of tears spring to my eyes. In a moment I went from a patient, if not annoyed and headachy, tired mom to a sobbing lunatic. It’s probably a testament to my sensitive, sweet life that it’s been over a decade since anyone has raised their voice at me. I couldn’t believe how much it stung.
“Okay,” I said through my tears, nodding.
The (clearly schizophrenic) woman began apologizing profusely. “So sorry, hon. I don’t know why I did that. Go ahead.”
I put my forehead on the steering wheel and cried and cried. She inched in front of me for another awkward ten minutes of her watching me cry in her rearview mirror.
Co-parent Catie freaked out about the whole thing. “Mommy, why, WHY, are you crying?”
I didn’t really know. I never lose it in front of my kids. Ever. I’ve never yelled at them, rarely cry in front of them, rarely even raise my voice.
Which is probably why that woman’s screaming was such a shock to our overly sensitive group.
We ate our ChickFilA in the car, dropped Catie off at drama (as if there hadn’t been enough of that in her life for the night), and headed home.
7…Put the little kids to bed, where they didn’t stay (see 1:00 entry about wrestling Nate). Cajoled, begged, threatened, and demanded they all GO TO SLEEP. YOU ARE ALL SO TIRED. CLOSE. YOUR. EYES.
7:20…Asked my sweet neighbor to come over and sit in my house so I could run and get Catie. Drove to her drama place and relived and relived that humiliating moment where I lost it in front of my kids and all of ChickFilA.
7:40…Came home to all the little kids out of their bed, running around with my sweet neighbor. I think it was the only solution she had when she realized none of the kids were sleeping. No, they were actually professional manipulators who wouldn’t stay in bed if their lives depended on it.
8…Tell the kids that ifthey had better not call me one more time. They saw the drive-thru scene; they knew I meant it.
Except Nate, who cried and whined until 10. Why? Because of that ten-minute nap? Because of his tummy? Because he, too, was reliving the drive-thru humiliation?
10…Wish I still drank so I could polish off a bottle of wine. Instead take TWO sleeping pills AND a melatonin and fall into bed.
I LOVE this post. It gives me hope. You are the calm mom. The mom who can have 4 kids running around her yet STILL engage in normal conversation. I want to be that mom but I have my freak outs… so it makes me feel better that you do.
I only have one kid and I lost it yesterday. Our week has been NUTS with the pneumonia/croup/doctors can’t make up their mind and we haven’t slept. I was giving Jansen YET ANOTHER medicine and he was going ballistic. I lost it. We both sat there crying.