Summer. Day 597 of rain. (Maybe a slight exaggeration.)

 

9am

 

I currently have eleven children in my house. (Mine and some extras.)

 

I made some beautiful blueberry muffins. Not because I was feeling especially domesticated, but more because we are out of cereal and blueberries were on sale at Aldis and I stocked up. 

 

Of course, half my kids looked at the muffins and decided they wanted eggs instead. Since eggs are theoretically healthier than blueberry muffins, I gave them permission to cook their own eggs. They then proceeded to cook their eggs in my iron skillet and forgot to add oil to the pan first. When I exclaimed loudly about this to the son who was responsible, he looked at me in confusion, “Oil? I never put oil in my pan.” (Which now explains why the pan is always so hard to wash after he cooks eggs.)

 

From one of the blueberry muffin-eating children there has also been a complaint that I put too much sugar on top of the muffin. (Too much sugar?) I explained that if that particular child did not want to eat something sweet for breakfast, they were welcome to have a piece of toast. Child then explained that they wanted the muffin, they would simply scrape all the sugar off the top. Which somehow seems sacrilegious.

 

11am

 

After breaking up approximately 27 fights, I have now banished all children to their rooms. 

 

11:30am

 

I have put on an educational movie about the jungle. All the children complained, because it was educational and not animated. 

 

11:40am

 

Children are calling me into the room to come see the amazing flying snake that flattens itself and then glides through the air. Hurray for educational movies. 

 

12pm

 

I could cook some rice and open some cans of beans for lunch. Or I could gather up the last remnants of our bread and try and make some sandwiches. Or I could run down the road five minutes to Kroger and get a big box of corndogs. 

12:30pm

 

I’m at Kroger. Oh look, strawberries are on sale. Strawberries and Corndogs. That’s a well-rounded meal right?

 

1:30pm

 

All the children have been fed. Dining room has been cleaned up. Rain has stopped. Children have been banished to the outdoors. They are all playing a game which involves chasing each other from one end of our playset to the other without letting their feet touch the ground. When I question the wisdom of tightrope walking across the beam that holds up the swings, they all assure me that they would never fall, accidents never happen, and they are in fact, invincible. 

 

3pm

 

The two year old has been fussing all day. He has a bad cold and has not been coping well. He thought it would be funny to smack me in the face. I did not think it was funny. I swatted his behind. He did not think that was funny. He is now crying for his daddy. Which is his new method of foul-play. Every time I do something he doesn’t like, he starts crying for his daddy. Like I am no longer the parent of choice, I have fallen out of favor. I have never had a child do this. It’s quite lowering to the moral. I suddenly have a lot more compassion for my husband who has had all his other children cry for mama at some point in time when he was alone with them. 

 

5pm

 

Time to make supper. What is the easiest, quickest thing I can make??? After wandering through my kitchen, I have decided to make burritos. Heat up the tortillas, open some cans of beans, cook up some beef. Add cheese and salsa. Presto. Supper. I ask one of my teenagers to help heat up the tortillas on the skillet. She keeps burning them. Smoke fills the kitchen. I complain that she is not doing it right. She says I gave her the wrong job. She has asthma, she shouldn’t be around smoke. I point out that creating smoke is not part of the job. 

 

6pm

 

A wave of despair. Tonight is my husband’s night off. We have figured out that if he can have a night to himself to work at his shop and if I can have a night off to get out of the house, and we can both have one night when we go out together…We are mentally healthier. But it means that tonight I am parenting solo.

We watch the movie Rio which I rented from the library. Personally, I think the voice of the main character is something akin to fingernails scraping a chalkboard. But, there is some fun music. 

 

9pm

 

Bible stories have been read, prayers have been prayed. Teeth brushed. Lights out. It’s time to clock out. Day is over etc. Except the two year old took an “unauthorized nap” somewhere around 4pm and he is now energized and ready to go. 

 

It’s been a long day. 

Good thing these babies are cute.