A Day in the Life

Author's note:  I have been horribly neglecting this blog lately, mainly due to two reasons:  lack of time and lack of ability to string two coherent words together.  Turns out that a new baby, while providing tons of material, also causes a little bit of writer's block.  To see why you haven't heard much from me lately, check out the following post, which outlines a typical morning lately.  No joke and no exaggeration.  Because really, who could make this stuff up?

Today started off not good.  And it is getting, well, not gooder.  A brief synopsis:

Jolt awake at 6:47 am to sound of baby screaming.  He has graciously allowed me 6 hours of uninterrupted sleep and he is hungry.  There is no ramp-up or warning with this baby - just instant notification of demands.  Feed baby, get him back to sleep, and return him to his crib.  Sneak upstairs to check email before big boys wake up.  Enjoy 10 minutes of blissful uninterrupted emailing, only to see that baby is wigging on monitor.  Turns out, big boys have woken up and are looking for me, so they barged into baby's room and woke him up.  Because I'm always just hanging out in baby's room and that would be the logical place to find me, right?  ARGH.

Bring all three boys downstairs and start breakfast process.  Breakfast passes without incident, injury or spill this morning.  Say a prayer of thanks for small miracles.  Get everyone dressed and loaded up for school.  It is raining this morning, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing since Georgia has been in a drought for approximately three years, but it will make the long list of errands that I have to run this morning a little bit messier.

Drop Cade at school.  On to a list of four errands.  I have written before about my adventures running errands with a three year-old and an infant that hates his seat.  It's no wonder that I put off outings with these two.  I feel like Pavlov's dog - I can only take being beaten down so many times before I just want to throw up my hands and give up.  

Tackle first errand on list - grocery store.  I am making dinner for a friend who just had a baby by c-section and while I hate grocery shopping with kids (and in the rain), this is the only time available where I won't have all three kids.  One less kid = exponentially easier outing, so I bite the bullet.

Since I am only buying a few items and I also need to visit the post office in the same shopping center, I decide to put the baby in the stroller and let Drew walk.  Open the trunk to discover that I forgot to unload the boy's bikes from when I took them to playgroup yesterday.  The stroller is at the bottom of the trunk.  Unload bikes (in the rain), dig out and assemble stroller, load baby,shove bikes back in,  grab Drew by the hand, and sprint into store.

Since Drew is not strapped into a cart (which violates one of my Cardinal Rules of Errand Running and today I remembered why), I brilliantly bribe him with fruit snacks to walk nicely next to me.  I not so brilliantly allow him to eat the fruit snacks first, which means that not only is he not walking nicely next to me, he is dashing around the store maniacally laughing in a fruit-snack induced sugar high.  Mercifully, baby has knocked out and is asleep and not screaming for once.

Manage to collect everything I need, stuff it into the stroller basket and get to the register.  In another small miracle, Kroger, which I hate, manages to not screw me today with A) a line that is 2,000 people long, B) a checker who is in training and doesn't know how to work the scanner or the keypad, or C) an elderly person that is holding up the line by paying a bill for $10.61 in pennies.

We walk over to post office.  It is 9:36 and naturally, the self-serve machine is broken and the service window doesn't open until 10 am.  My post office is even more awesome than regular post offices and it is open from 10 am to 4 pm with a break from approximately noon to 2 for lunch, with 15 minute coffee breaks on either end.  The package that I have been trying to mail since May will now have to wait another 4 months.

The lion has awakened.  Baby begins to stir and I know that my time is limited.  Sprint across the parking lot in the rain with both kids and try to shove groceries and stroller back in the van.  By this time, baby is in all-out wail and I know that I have to abort the mission and leave the other three errands on the list undone.  

Arrive home and immediately begin feeding baby.  Drew is playing cars on the dining room table and somehow manages to fall off his chair, hitting his lip on the table.  Blood is everywhere.  Put screaming baby down to attend to screaming preschooler.  Get blood under control, calm Drew with a bowl of Cocoa Puffs (am definitely not winning any Nutrition Pyramid Mother of the Year awards this morning), and dash back to screaming baby.  Bonus in this situation:  Drew's shirt is brown which means that maybe it will not be ruined by the blood or Cocoa Puff stains.  Another small miracle.

Feed baby some more.  Drew has finished snack and is still half crying and begging to watch his Cars movie.  Put screaming baby down again and realize I don't know how to work the downstairs DVD player.  I tell a screaming (again) Drew that we have to wait until Cade gets home to watch a DVD and I frantically search for some other suitable substitute show on TV.

Realize that I have become that mom.  The one that has to wait for her 4 year old to get home from school to show her how to work her own DVD player.

It is now 10:15 am.