What I Do

Around 6:00 a.m. I am usually startled awake by two blankets being thrown on or around my head followed by a squirmy little boy helping himself to the majority of my pillow. He then starts demanding things like his orange juice or "Caillou". As much as I want to keep sleeping I cannot resist my tyrant king Benjamin's commands so I obediently stumble into the kitchen to get his majesty his juice. Then I negotiate a spot in my bed and pretend I'm going to go back to sleep. When I finally decide to admit that sleep is a distant memory and not in my near future I stumble back out to the kitchen and make sure the girls are awake and getting ready for school.

I then make breakfast for everyone and tell Anna to hurry. Then I make the girls' lunches and tell Anna to hurry. 15 minutes later Abby has eaten, gotten dressed, done her chores, brushed her teeth, loaded her backpack and is asking me who she can play with after school while I tame her bedhead hair. I interrupt her to remind Anna to hurry. Brennan sits at the computer and watches our stocks tank and rethinks buying Lehman Brothers last week. He skips breakfast as he's a little nauseous. I tell Anna she has 5 minutes to get dressed, finish breakfast, do her chores, and pack up her backpack. She doesn't worry about it and I try not to have a nervous breakdown. 2 minutes before it's time for the girls to walk to school Anna decides now would be a good time to play hide and seek with Ben. There might be some yelling by someone who very much regrets it very soon after.

I wave goodbye to the girls and lament that I forgot to reserve some energy for the other 14 hours left of the day. Then I clean the kitchen and pick up the family room and help the boys get dressed. I go get ready for the day while the boys make a mess of the family room and kitchen. We do Nate's homework, sometimes run an errand or two, read some books and try to keep the boys busy so they don't get bored because I've noticed that when they get bored they get destructive. We eat lunch and then drive Nate to school. Ben and I head home where I put him to bed for his nap. I enjoy a few hours of quiet time and usually just before it's time to pick up the carpool Ben and his two blankets come down the hall and find me. I stop whatever I'm doing and pick him up and snuggle with him for a few glorious minutes.

Just before 4:00 3 kids come bursting through the door and then it's a whirlwind of comings and goings, ballet, piano, soccer practice, activity days, friends, etc. On Thursdays Anna comes home from school and changes into her leotard, tights and ballet shoes. 45 minutes later she comes home and changes into shorts, shin guards, and cleats. It always makes me laugh.

At 5:30 I start to try to round everyone up and help them with homework while I make dinner. Brennan is usually home sometime around then, but is often on the phone. There is a lot of talking going on by a lot of people. Sometime around 6:30 we eat dinner and I wonder if Brennan and I are very loud people because all of my children are. I usually smile at something someone says at dinner. Sometimes it's Abby who often hears wrong and we often laugh at what she thought someone said. Or it could be Nate saying something very grown-up but a little bit wrong and Anna catches my eye and smiles at me knowingly. Or it could be because I watched Ben insist on dishing himself large portions of everything on the table including salt and pepper and eat 3% of it or because he says, "Good dinner, mom".

Around 7:00 we start the painfully slow process of getting everyone ready for bed. All the lively good natured playful sides of all 4 of our children suddenly appear and they are the best of friends who cannot be ripped from each others' sides to attend to getting pajamas on or brushing their teeth. Abby is efficient but terrified of everything and cannot go downstairs without company. Anna is fearless but tragically inefficient. Eventually Anna finishes getting ready for bed so that Abby can and around 8:00 we have our family prayer and sometimes (working on it) read scriptures. Ben and Nate cuddle with Brennan or me for a few minutes and then one of us tucks Ben in his bed and Nate in our bed, he's scared in his room so he falls asleep in our bed each night and then we move him into his bed. As we tuck him in we rub his legs for a minute because they are always "stretchy". Then we spray some air deodorizer aka "bad guy spray" for good measure. Theoretically the girls each read until 9:00, but it is not uncommon to find Anna creeping upstairs at 11:00 to go to the bathroom having just finished reading. This stresses me out because for some reason I'm a little neurotic about my children getting enough sleep and although I lecture Anna to no end about how badly she needs her sleep I secretly love that she loves to read so much and feel like a hypocrite because I can often be found up all hours of the night reading (or writing posts).

From 8 to 11ish Brennan and I catch up with each other and although I'm exhausted I can't figure out why because it seems like I didn't get anything done all day. He tells me how he's worried about an account that he lost or might lose and I tell him not to worry that it will all be okay. It always is, but every now and then I realize that it's all okay because Heavenly Father blesses us and because Brennan worries about it and works very hard. He usually wants to watch CNBC or Fox news and I usually won't let him.

Between 11 and 12 I lock all the doors several times and fill Nate and Ben's sippies with orange juice and start the dishwasher. Then I go look at Nate, then Ben and usually I change his diaper. After that I go downstairs and put vaseline and socks on Anna's poor little chapped hands, then I go look at Abby. Most of the time I really have to look because she's way down under her covers or pillow. I think about how cute they all are and how much I love them and how much nicer I'm going to be to them tomorrow.

Then I climb into bed next to Brennan and before I know it two blankets are being thrown onto my head.