What do I do all day? How do I spend my time? What do I actually accomplish?
My day starts at 6:30, even though I'm lucky to fall asleep before midnight (and some of those middle-of-the-night Ambien wanderings can be really tiring. I bet if I slapped a pedometer on my PJ's, I'd find myself amnesia-walking off almost all the calories I amnesia-eat). But I have to get up at 6:30 because my soon to be 12-year-old just started junior high, which is apparently the year when schools know they can REALLY fuck with parents. Obviously just OWNING a junior high aged child is its own special brand of crazy, but go ahead and make it worse by making THEIR start time the earliest each morning. So my brilliant baby bird who, for the record, would not make it after that initial shove out of the nest, requires my loving "honey, it's time to get up!" gentle back rub each morning. After I ask enough times if he's awake to get the emphatic "YES!!!!!!!" I need to hear, I stumble downstairs to let the dogs out (who are always ecstatic to be up at the buttcrack of dawn; apparently simply waking up to a dog is almost orgasmic). I let them out, wrapped in a blanket and freezing my sleepy ass off while squinting off into the distance, not at the beautiful view of my backyard pond, but at my stupid little mutt to see if he's pooped or not. I then return to the couch, still wrapped in the blanket, where I remain in my crack whore mom half-asleep, half-stupid state for the next half hour as I repetitively ask the same questions. THE SAME QUESTIONS. EVERY DAY. They never change. It goes like this:
Did you change your clothes?
Did you change your socks?
Did you brush your teeth?
What time is it?
Do you have band today? Do you have your sax, tuba, trombone, what the hell is it you play again? Do you have it? Do you have your lesson book?
Do you have a sweatshirt?
Did you brush your teeth?
Did you brush your hair?
Do your clothes match? (this is a new one Jay insisted I add this year since he's in junior high now and he can't stand the thought of our son in one of his famous orange on orange combos)
What time is it now?
Did you brush your teeth? Did I already ask you that? Well, did you?
What time is it now?
Do you have your backpack?
What time is it now? (At this point, he usually gives me a "Oh, it's time to go!" and runs out the door. Sometimes I hear this. Sometimes, like the answer to the toothbrushing, I don't, so I will continue repeating these questions a few more times until I realize he left 10 minutes ago.
Eventually the two teens show up and either persistently (annoyingly) talk at me or persistently (annoyingly) ignore me. Once they leave, it's refold all the blankets that are scattered around. Put the dishes in the dishwasher. Rehang the towel by the sink. Put the open soda cans in the fridge. Feed the pets. Put all the remotes back and turn off the TV that's been blaring either ESPN or Spongebob at me for the past hour. Go upstairs, returning stuff I've found and finding more stuff to return. Make my bed. Do my own business. Go downstairs. Clean more stuff. Get coffee. Go to work (my commute is SUCH a bitch!). Proceed to sign in and work my own 10- to 11-hour day, which only equates to 8 hours of actual work when the constant phone calls, bill paying, appointment updating, school emails checking, school lunch balances checking, occasional texts from my kids between classes, fixing dinner, taking the dogs out every 2 hours, grabbing UPS packages before my dog has a chance to eat the UPS guy, taking care of every type of possible maintenance revolving around a household, a husband, kids, cats, dogs, and my own sanity (or lack thereof). Before I know it, they start trickling back in, one by one, and within minutes the house looks exactly like it did when I got up this morning. Now it's 20 questions again. How was your day? Do you have any papers for me? I got an email from your teacher. Did you know about this? Do you have anything for me to sign? Are you sure? Do you have any homework? Are you sure? Did you do your chores? (This one will get repeated about 20 times before bedtime.) Are you sure you don't have any homework? (At least 50% of the time, the 3rd or 4th time I ask this I will get another "Oh yeah!")
This is usally the point in my day when I take a break from work, sit in front of a game of Chuzzle to destress for a few minutes, then go and re-undo all that they've done. Again. Like frickin' Groundhog Day, only it repeats several times a day, not just every day.
After all of this is said and done, what do my children think I do while they're gone? "All you do is sit around and play Chuzzle all day."
After all I do for them all day every day, this is what they think I do. Kids should really know what their parents have to do to keep it together every single day. After all, it's for them, right? I think I finally understand why the nanny hung herself in The Omen. It wasn't because he was the devil; it was because she was sick of people saying all she did was sit around playing with her noose all day. It's all for you, my little birds. All for you. Now get the hell out of this nest and bring mommy her wine.
Queen of my own Magic Kingdom, full of all the irreverent, obnoxious, and sometimes offensive sarcasm you know and love. I don't care what people think of me, but I do care if you like my blog. Read, forward, repeat.
