Ponytail holders and a candy bar

It's funny how one can have a nice long break from the normal routine, have plenty of mornings to sleep in, think she is refreshed and ready to hit the ground running when the normal routine starts up again, and then WHAM!  The normal routine becomes immediately overwhelming.  Or, at least, it makes very apparent how thickly I am in the throws of motherhood.

This has started off as an asthma week.  Several trips to the doctor and the pharmacy and trying to contain a boy who just wants to run around and play outside in the yellow-green haze.  I'm trying to wrap my head around all the medications, side effects, seasonal plans and remind myself that it's better to have him healthy and breathing on medication than suffering and hooked to oxygen at REX. 

I cleaned many many many a dirty bottom today.  On a little girl who really should be potty trained but just isn't interested and just doesn't have a mom with the discipline to get it done right now.  And because she's not trained, it adds searching for Pull-Ups deals to the never ending list of things to do.  Ah, the coupons.  That's not for this post.

And I have yet another child who it turns out has been picked on at school for a couple of weeks and I had to be THAT mom who calls a child's parent to ask for help in having her child stop the kicking, spitting, punching, name-calling, crayon-breaking, and paper ripping.  And I had to find more encouraging words for my child who came home again today with the report that she was "only pinched a few times" and that only a juice box was squirted on her new shirt. 

I had a list of things to accomplish today.  Like working on a fun project for beasknees that would result in a press-printed book to show at auctions or other promotional events.  Like putting away our weekend's suitcase that is still half-packed in the hallway and, I fear, threatens to mimick the suitcase episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.:

Like put the drawer (yes DRAWER) of long sleeved shirts back in my dressser where it belongs, rather than on the floor right in the pathway to my bathroom.  Like crate the dog whenever I left the house.  Like clean up all the Easter baskets and candy and goodies that are littering my dining room table and front hallway.  I'm sure there were more things to do, but I didn't bother to actually write out a list, opting instead to let it rattle around in my head until it settled somewhere to be likely forgotten.  I can't say any of this got done.  I made no templates, moved no suitcase (except maybe to nudge it when I vaccuumed around it), stepped over the drawer once again, let the dog run free (thereby necessitating use of the Green Machine's mama, the Purple Machine) and vaccuumed around the Easter goodies piled in the front hallway.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I just added to the piles of stuff around the front hallway.

It was a day when my hair was inexplicable.  When I couldn't bear the thought of wearing anything other than my yoga pants and t-shirt.  When I just felt like a slug and didn't know where to start trying to dive back into the routine.  I glanced in the mirror at the doctor's office this morning and thought, "well, at least she [the doc] knows I have a sick kid and probably understands why I look so awful."  I thought about running to Target afterward to replace the hair dryer that died on me Saturday, but I was too embarassed that the clerk would think I was purchasing it to try to fix the nest that angry squirrels had built on my head.  I had chicken lunches thrown at me through the car window, but at least I took them to school and ate with my kid, who didn't care about my hair or my chipped toe nail polish or my ill-fitting yoga pants, so long as he could eat with me and retell a tale of Geronimo Stilton that he read last night and then trade made-up jokes with me over shared french fries.  It was a day when I knew Geof would be home late and I would do dinner on my own, but I somehow made it through, getting homework done, supervising entries for a coloring contest and feeding the kids.  At one point while cooking in the midst of seemingly excessive noise and activity, I halted my immediate reaction to "tone it down or move to the basement," and just kept my mouth shut and listened.  Just tried to soak in the noise and let it be.  And then when it was time to head over to church to register for next year's session of Bible study (a study that tends to send me into a tailspin of anxiety over wardrobe, costume jewelry, boutique children's clothing and cute handbags, such that it gives me pause over whether or not to register), I just went.  I did tame the squirrel's nest, mind you, but my wardrobe was subpar and my nails were still chipped and I just went.  I just went.  Because I'm a mom.  And I'm in the throws of motherhood and I've had a day.  A lot of days.  And I'm tired and I need a hair cut and I have great kids and I'm tired of my dog and I overextend and I need to be in the Word.  So I just went.  For me, and for them:

And then on the way home I bought myself ponytail holders and a candy bar.