The Craziness That Is My Life

This is my car.  This is an essential part of my life.  Without it, I could not run the Stringham Family Taxi Service, and where would I be then?  (In a much simpler, possibly dull place,  I am sure. )  May is an absolutely insanely crazy time at our house.  And I think it all culminates in this one week.  We have 3 kids playing soccer with either practices or games 2 days a week for each of them.  I play soccer once a week.  Shawn has lots of extra band practices because Studentfest is this weekend, plus since Summer Solstice is only weeks away, the Eddie band has also commenced practicing.  And swim team started this week for Jonas and Samantha.  Of course, we also still have piano, harp and dance going on.  

This is how my afternoon went: Pick Amelia up from preschool.  Run home to get swim stuff, ballet stuff and snacks for all.  Load it all into the car.  Load kids into car to go pick up Samantha from school.  Samantha in car.  Toss her her swimsuit to change into, then toss her a cheese stick and some crackers.  Drop her off at the pool.  Drive back to intercept Jonas and his friend, Tanner who are now off the bus and walking home.  Drop Tanner off.  Toss Jonas his swimsuit to change into, followed by his snacks to eat as well.  (All this time I am, of course, driving very carefully since I have children not buckled in and removing clothing - safe, huh?) Get back to the pool, unload everyone, watch Samantha swim for 5 minutes.  Get Samantha out of the water and Jonas in.  Hustle all the girls back out to the car where Samantha now changes into her ballet clothes while we drive to ballet.  Drop her off, return to the pool.  (Yes, this is now my third trip there in an hour!)  Unload and watch the last 10 minutes of Jonas' workout.  Then reload everyone, take Jonas home, unload all of the clothing, backpacks, towels, goggles, shoes, wrappers, papers, etc., from the car and dump it in a pile on the floor.  Load the girls back up and go get Samantha from ballet.  Bring her home.  Whew!  Now the problem is, they all want dinner, and I've clearly not made any yet.  Say hello and good-bye to Shawn as he heads off to scouts with some mention of how it would be nice to see him for an extended period of time in the near future.  

And to think we chose it all.  At least it will only be this crazy for a couple of weeks.  After next week, preschool ends, soccer ends, Studentfest will be done and things will settle into a slightly more manageable groove until school lets out for the summer.

It kind of makes me nostalgic for the days of a couple of young kids when the days seemed long and we were looking for things to do.  Anyway, it brings me back to my point of the necessity of my car in my life.  It's a sad state.  I wish I were less dependent on it, especially since, as Samantha puts it so gently, I am killing the penguins.  (They apparently learned something about global warming at school and my driving the car is clearly a direct cause - but she doesn't seem willing to ride her bike everywhere either.)  So there you have it - my life of craziness.  If you think you don't see me much or hear from me often, you can now understand that I barely have time to come up for air and my antisocial behavior is nothing personal. :)

Ah, The Joys of Motherhood or The Weather Needs To Improve Soon

This cold, rainy, snowy, weather is making me crazy, and therefore quite a bit less tolerant of all the lovely things that my children do.  Four times in the past 2 days, I have walked into a bathroom to find the entire roll of toilet paper unrolled and piled up on the floor, with parts of it shredded and spread all over. (Kind of makes me wish I hadn't bought the big rolls.)   I dream of cleaning up a room and coming back 5 minutes later to find that it is still clean.  But alas, it is not to be.  (Perhaps if it would stay warm enough, I could send the kids outside!)  Instead I come back to see that my 1 year old has poured herself some cereal or that both Amelia and Megan have helped themselves to yogurt, and in the process, Megan has painted both herself and the counter with it.  And one of my favorites is to find my girls making "phone calls".  (We have quite a history of dialing 9-1-1 around here, so this is never a good situation.)  This all happens in the time it takes me to go change a load of laundry or run to the bathroom, mind you. 

                                                                          I've heard that some kids 

will sit in front of a t.v. and stay put, therefore allowing a parent to accomplish some tasks, but I'm not that lucky.  And even if I leave the younger ones under the watchful care of an older sibling for a few brief moments, I may find when I check on them, that they have all colored themselves blue!  (So much for hoping that with age comes the ability to make good and responsible choices.)  I think even my kids are feeling a little cooped up if I am to judge from  all of the screaming and fighting that is going on between my two youngest, who are usually good buddies.  

All I know is that it better warm up quick if we are all going to survive!!!!