I love to share my ordinary days for many reasons, but mostly because I want other mothers to know they are not alone in this messy, joyful chaos (now that would have been a good blog name) and because I want to remember these days in all their non-glamorous glory.
I woke up this morning and, as soon as I glanced at myself in the mirror, I noticed my poodle bangs. My hair is not curly, but has become more wavy with each pregnancy (dang hormones), and I look a lot like a poodle when I wake up in the morning after showering the night before and sleeping on wet hair. So, I had to straighten my bangs at some point before seeing anyone. Truthfully, straightening all my hair would have been the best option, but I knew that just wasn't gonna happen.
Anyway, I went about my morning as usual: read my Bible, cuddled the kids as they woke up, made shakes,
made coffee. Some plans were rearranged at the last minute, and it turned out I would be having a friend and her baby come over to visit mid-morning. So, the kids and I needed to change out of our pj's.
Elle dressed herself in gray sweats and a t-shirt. Whatever.
I asked James to get dressed so he also grabbed gray sweat pants and a shirt and headed to go change in my bathroom.
Meanwhile, I was attempting to change Judah, but he managed to escape my grasp as I tried to get the layers of cloth diaper on him.
Then he promptly peed on the carpet. I sighed and went to grab the carpet cleaner.
As I was wondering why James was taking so long in the bathroom, I heard some thuds and cries from the kitchen.
I ran in and saw Judah, pathetically and unsuccessfully trying to regain his footing in a ginormous puddle of urine that he had created. Geeze Louis.
I scooped him up and carried him into the bathroom, catching another glimpse of the poodle bangs, and started a bath for him. I quickly scrubbed the pee off the carpet and mopped up the kitchen, which unfortunately forced me to turn on the florescent overhead light that really accentuates the need of our once-white cabinets to be repainted.
I made the kids a snack, threw on a bit of make-up (still in pjs), then got Judah out of the tub and dressed. It seemed I had just enough time to throw on some real clothes and deal with the bang issue. I went into my closet and closed the door as best I could (Lane has some sort of pull-up bar hanging in the doorway).
No luck. Elle came in with a glob of sparkly pink something on her finger. "James has this and it smells good!" Good grief. What now?
I left the closet and demanded that James tell me what he had taken. He pointed to his room, where a tube of lip gloss I never use was on the ground. Oh well, at least it wasn't all over everything. I grabbed it and went to put it back in my bathroom. As I stepped onto the linoleum I was surprised that my sock stuck. I looked down. Sure enough, the floor was smeared over with something pink and sparkly. Ah, so this was what he had been doing the whole time in the bathroom: finger painting with make-up.
After that was wiped up I had just enough time to pull on some real pants and a shirt before my friend drove up.
We had a great time and, at one point, she mentioned how much she appreciated the reality that is me and my house. Poodle bangs and all.
The funniest part about this morning is that it was in no way out of the ordinary. Every day brings laughable, ridiculous adventures and tasks and balancing acts. Maybe this is why so many woman say that raising small children seems to go by so quickly- because you are doing the same things over and over, and it seems like you are not getting anywhere. Another messy diaper, picking up more dirty socks and lidless markers, making another pb and j... the repetitive messy work that suddenly seems to result in people. Truly, this is the best and most rewarding way I can spend my time, creating these little people in the mundane yet wild days.
PS random assortment of photos taken throughout my ordinary day. Photo cred of Judah and I goes to James
