the time warp

When you talk to moms who’s kids are grown and gone they will consistantly say things like, “enjoy every minute of your life now because it goes so fast.” I appreciate what they are saying because things do go fast. Just think, I’ve been a mom longer than the whole time I was in High School. In reality that’s true, but for some reason High School seemed to take a significant amount of time to get through and Cole’s birth is still as vivid a memory as what I had for dinner a few hours ago.

So what’s with the time warp? Perhaps it’s because as a mom I live enough to fill a week in a single day and still have is pile of socks to match when it’s time for bed.  Today, for example, the kids found me on the couch asleep with the early news on. I had gotten up to feed Grace and fallen asleep there some time after 3am. Tim has been instructed that if this should happen he should put the phone near my head, turn the tv on, and call me by 6:30am to make sure I am up and ready to get the kids going for school.  When I woke up Anna Mae and Truman were fighting over the phone because they know Daddy is calling to wake up mom. Now the funny conversation between Tim and Tru involving a reminder that I needed to take the garbage out and then when Anna stole the phone to tell Tim that Grace needed to be fed and Cole was still asleep, causing Tru to start screaming and me to realize that I wasn’t just dreaming seems like a million days ago.

We had a great morning mostly because Mom sent us a box of eggo waffles and the kids made their own breakfast. I had found eleven hours of the Electric Company on DVD at the Library, so that proved to be good motivation to finish getting dressed and into the car – hey, I know I was never going to be the mom with the driving TV, but the DVD player came standard with the van and I’ve tried to counterbalance the potential for it to rot their brains with something educational. So we were even early enough to sit outside the school for a couple minutes before the doors opened- you know, so we could watch more TV.

While Cole and Anna were at school I made new curtains for my kitchen. Truman watched the neighbors recycling blow around the neighborhood and played with Cole’s toys. Grace took a long nap and by the time we had to leave to pick up the kids I had the sewing machine almost ready to be put away.

On the way home we stopped at the Salvation Army to drop off a donation of Mc Donald’s toys and other things I found while picking up the basement. The kids were too distracted to claim that I was giving away their most beloved toys because a huge CAT machine was demolishing a building right next door. We sat and watched that for awhile. 

Once home the kids disappeared into the yard to see if they could get the neighbor boy to come outside. Anna came in all wet after trying to make snow angels in the melting slush outside his window. Connor was smart enough to stay in and have lunch (he doesn’t have a DVD player in his car – brain is still intact). By the time they all came in, I had Grace fed and started their lunch.

Then we had the big clean-up for playgroup. They will be here bright and early tomorrow – I haven’t hosted in forever, so I thought I might at least wipe down the bathrooms. I did a ton of laundry and even vacumed the stair case. I also remembered to notify Cole that Martha Stewart started  so he could watch the bird doing tricks that had been on the previews.

By the time I fed Grace again and was just starting a gorcery list – Tim was walking in the door and wanted to know why Anna and Cole were not ready for ballet and soccer. Thank God for dinner by design because I threw a meal in the oven and made it look I had a plan all along. Then I barked at Tim for not appreciating me and got both kids ready to go.

I found the last parking spot in the YMCA lot and got Cole to walk up the “stairs that you can see through” and into the building on time. Cole’s class is upstairs in the gym and Anna’s is in the basement studio, so I spent most of my time there running back in fourth.

On the way home we stopped in Wind Point and bought blue eggs at the farm house. We also went to Pick and Save and got cake mix and ice cream cones. Dinner was ready when we arrived home. Tim had Tru in bed already and so the rest of us ate and then started making a school snack for Anna’s half birthday to be celebrated at school tomorrow. We made those cakes in the icecream cones and I may be named “snack mom of the year” if there is such a title.

Once the kids were tucked in, Tim made me sit down and watch 24 with him, we called his dad, and hung the new curtains. 

So not anything all that exciting going on, but way too much to really take it all in. When people tease me that I didn’t return a phone call or write a thank you note within a day or two I have to laugh. There are always so many things going on and it all goes by so fast. And it’s not until the house is quiet and I can sit and blog while admiring my new curtains that I realize two things… first, I do need to enjoy this time with my family and second, thank God I can multi-task because I can focus on doing just that while I quickly sort the socks and make my way up to bed…