Tuesday, April 30, 2013

A Day in the Life


Dear anyone who has ever gotten mad at me for not returning your phone call or email or text right away,

Although I love you (or at least tolerate you) and want to talk to you, I can't always take time out to do so immediately. This is why -

6:00  Alarm goes off. I smack my phone a few times until it turns off.
6:20  Austin comes in my room and says something about rain. I don't wake up enough to comprehend.
6:25  Savannah comes in my room and asks me if I can drive her and Austin to school before second period because it's raining. I growl at Savannah and my head rotates 360 because, quite frankly, I'm not a nice person in the morning.
6:45  Wake up again and realize it's quarter til 7:00. Freak out. But not enough to actually get out of bed.
7:00  Spring out of bed, adrenaline rushing through my veins. Thankfully, I work well under pressure. Wake up the Littles and the Middles.
7:02  Shower. I remember to actually rinse off today.
7:10  Wrap myself in a robe and go downstairs and make coffee and lunch while I drip dry because I'm too lazy to actually take a towel to myself.
7:12  Jackson informs me that I need to drive him to school early for his field trip. Information that would've been nice to know yesterday (not that I would've dragged my butt out of bed any earlier, of course.)
7:17  Go upstairs and get dressed.
7:18  Decide I look hideous and change.
7:19  Decide the new outfit looks just as bad as the first one. Change.
7:20  Repeat the last two steps.
7:21  Vow to consume nothing but water. At least until noon.
7:25  Slap on some make-up and take stock of my hair. It's raining and humid. I already look like Roseanne Roseannadanna.  Ponytail it is.
7:30  Wake up the oldest kids who have fallen back asleep. Pile everyone in the car.
7:31  Lexi's friend picks her up.
7:35  I drop off Jackson.
7:45  I drop off Brooklyn and Clayton.
7:55  I drop off Austin and Savannah.
8:00  I drive away from the high school as a branch hits a powerline almost directly above me. The tree catches on fire and sparks fly. I slam on my brakes. As I watch the flames, the whole thing bursts into a fireball and I'm momentarily blinded by the light. I've never seen anything like this before and I'm freaked out. I call 9-1-1 and debate speeding under the burning foliage and sparking wires to get to work, or just sitting there until the firemen arrive because well - FIREMEN!
8:05  I get impatient and drive as far around the wires as I can.
8:06  Get stuck in traffic behind an accident.
8:25  See a smashed-up school bus and a news crew and pray that no one was hurt.
8:35  Get to work.
9:00  Decide that I was crazy for vowing not to eat and grab my yogurt. Realize I've forgotten to pack a spoon again. Debate between using a pen or a mascara wand to eat it. Find a straw in my drawer and attempt to scoop up yogurt with a straw because I am just that classy.
9:05  Drink a couple more cups of coffee.
9:15  Consider calling 9-1-1 again because it feels like my heart is going to explode from caffeine overdose. And I didn't actually get to see any firemen the first time around.
9:20  School starts and I bang my head against the wall for the next 4 hours.
1:30  Take time to eat an unhealthy amount of peanut butter brownies for lunch.
2:00  Go back to banging my head.
4:00  Leave school.
4:25  Pick up the Littles.
4:30  Get home. Check on the homework situation. Start a load of laundry.
4:45  Check email and make sure I'm all set for the Twitter party I'm co-hosting tonight.
5:30  Ask Jackson to make some couscous and corn for dinner. Slice up leftover pork chops into little strips so kids won't realize they're left-overs and they'll eat them.
5:55  Take Lex and Brooklyn to tumbling.
6:00 Kick them out the door and drive Savannah on to the high school so she can get the last of her volunteer hours for NHS.
6:15  Drive around campus and pick up Austin, who stayed late to work on some ceramics, from school.
6:30  Drop Austin off at home and go back to football field to watch the girls do backflips.
7:00  Go home and give instructions to everyone to get ready for bed. Assure Lexi that despite the warnings, a tornado isn't going to hit us. Start writing a brilliant blog post.
7:45  Do something stupid and manage to lose my brilliant blog post.
7:55  Finally stop cursing my evil computer and dial in for the Twitter party.
9:05  Tuck in my kiddos.
9:15  Give up on writing a brilliant blog post and instead endeavor to explain how busy my days are thus resulting in stupid blog posts.
9:16  Get interrupted by Lexi who is afraid that zombies will kill her in her sleep.
9:18  Get interrupted by Savannah who asks me if I can help her with her math. She knows darn well that I can't. She just likes to make fun of me.
9:25  Get interrupted by Jackson who shows me his abdomen and says, "Is it supposed to stick out like this?" I make a mental note to call the doctor about the ultrasound results tomorrow.
9:30  Get interrupted by Savannah who tells me she's still dizzy from donating blood today.
9:35  Get interrupted by Lexi again who says she has a tummy ache.
9:45  Get interrupted by Savannah again who complains that she has her EOC in history tomorrow.
9:50  Get interrupted by Austin who presents me with a chocolate cupcake. It almost, almost does away with my disappointment in his crappy grades.
10:15  Work my way through a backlog of email.
11:00  Realize I've been goofing off on Facebook for the last 45 minutes when I should've been writing.
11:20  Hop in the shower, take a handful of Tums to counteract the chocolate cupcake and lie down.
11:45  Take my turn in my 4 perpetual Words with Friends games and lie awake for an hour thinking about everything I have to do tomorrow.
12:45  Get up and switch the load of laundry I've forgotten about.
2:30  Wake up on fire and dripping sweat because I'm middle-aged. Think about going downstairs and standing in the freezer but decide I'm too lazy to move.
3:00  Wake up with a great idea for a book and type it into my iPhone even though I know from experience that I'll wake up tomorrow and not be able to read a single word of the nonsense I typed.

Yep, that's pretty much my (and really, any mom's) day. There are variations of this. Sometimes I forget to pack a spoon and eat my yogurt with a plastic knife. Sometimes I have water polo instead of tumbling. Power lines don't usually explode on my way to work. But the basics stay the same. So this is why I sometimes can't call you back right away or find the time to answer emails. I'm sure you understand.

Sincerely, 
Dawn

6 comments:

Cindy said...

Oh yeeaa. I think every mom can relate to this post!

Carrie said...

I think you just shared my day, but changed the names to protect the guilty!!
Haha!

Kiki Nakita said...

Keep on going. Oneday your kids will be able to drive you around. Have a good day tomorrow!

Sarah said...

You are amazing, and a great Mom. Makes me tired just reading it. You go, girl! :)

Elisabet said...

Yep.There is always too much to cram into one day, let alone in a week! I'm a classroom aide at a middle school and it is - well - it's nuts. And then having my own family to take care of too...I'm happy to read that other moms are feeling the insanity of it all, too.

V1nce said...

>11:45 Take my turn in my 4 perpetual Words with Friends games

(whistles Man of La Moncha innocently)

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