Sunday Sound Out

From Chicago, home of the Whales, it's your host, Dawn Meehan (she smells like vanilla).

How many of the kids have broken bones?
Hmmm, let's see. I believe there have been six broken bones, four times needing stitches, ten surgeries, and more colds, flus, stomach viruses, sprains, cuts, black eyes, bloody lips, and abrasions than I can count. And last year, there were...

How can you fold laundry with six kids?
I used to fold the laundry and set it neatly on my bed in stacks for the kids to put away, but after sixteen years of finding clean, unworn, still-folded clothes thrown back in the hampers, I gave up. Now I just take the clean laundry out of the dryer and throw it right back into the washer.

How do you manage taking care of six kids every day?
Probably the best way to explain this is by sharing my schedule with you.

7:30 The alarm on my phone goes off. I hit it a few times until it shuts up.

7:40 The stinkin' alarm goes off again. I bury my phone under my pillow to silence it.

8:30 The kids come in my room to see if I'm dead. Upon hearing my less-than-pleasant growls, they ask (from a safe distance, of course) if I'm going to drive them to school.

8:40 I drag my butt out of bed and step on the cereal that's covering the kitchen floor, half-notice the milk that's dripping off the counter, and look at the clock. No time to make coffee. I eat a spoonful of grounds.

8:50 Go on a search for Clay's shoes. Every. Single. Day.

9:00 Find one shoe in the closet and the other one on the garage roof.

9:05 Curse the idiots in the Kiss 'N Drive lane.

10:00 Back home. Sit down to ingest mucho mas caffeine.

10:01 Get Brooklyn chocolate milk.

10:02 Play a couple hundred rounds of Princess Matching Game.

10:03 Get Brooklyn a bagel.

10:04 Clean up spilled chocolate milk.

10:05 Get Brooklyn some peanut butter for her bagel

10:06 Clean up peanut butter.

10:07 Slice up a cucumber for Brooklyn.

10:07 Sit back down and watch SpongeBob with Brooklyn. Brooklyn tells me I'm like Squidward in the morning. Go back for more coffee.

12:00 Get up to shower. On the way to bathroom, notice Brooklyn's full cup of milk, peanut butter bagel and cucumbers still sitting, untouched, on the table.

12:00 (and two seconds) Have the following conversation.

Mom!

What?

Mumble mumble blah blah blah

What?

I said mumble mumble blah blah blah

WHAT? I can't hear you! I'm in the shower!

I SAID, are you in the shower, Mom?

Grrr!

12:55 Wonder where the last three hours went. Say, "Oh crap! It's time for school! I never got you lunch! Are you hungry? Here, have a Snickers bar and grab your backpack!"

1:10 Sit down to write an article, but get distracted by the 999 emails in my box. Okay fine! I might, possibly, perhaps, maybe play 5000 games a game or two of solitaire. Occasionally. Sometimes. A little bit.

3:00 Wonder how the heck time keeps accelerating as I rush out the door to pick up Brooklyn five minutes late.

3:30 Curse my fellow man and wonder how these people ever managed to obtain driver's licenses as I pick up the other kids.

3:31 Start yelling about the fact that the kids have completely destroyed the house in less than a minute's time.

5:00 Stop yelling and start making dinner.

8:00 Start yelling for the kids to stop jumping on the couches and put their freaking pajamas on. Begin a calming bedtime routine.

10:00 Threaten to make the kids sleep outside. Tuck the kids in for the fourteenth time.

11:00 Yell at the teens to stop texting and go to sleep or I'll run over their phones with my car.

11:30 Go through as much email as I can until my eyes bleed, then write some articles and come up with terribly clever, witty, brilliant things to say on my blog. You're welcome.

2:00 Remember that my sheets are still in the washing machine. Plop them in the dryer and sit back down to play just one more game of solitaire...

3:00 Make my bed and curse myself for staying up too late again.