Look Mom! Hot Chocolate!

I can't figure out how to put a link to my little interview, but you click this, it should take you to the Star 102.5 in Des Moines page of podcasts. From there you can click on the one that says something like "We talked with Blogger and mom Dawn Meeghan."
http://www.star1025.com/podcasts/Dawn_090507.mp3

I know, I know, I didn't update my blog last night. I came to the conclusion that I can only go on 4 hours of sleep a night for a maximum of 2 weeks before I drop. I passed out at 11:00 last night (and wasn't even drinking!) and still had a hard time dragging my butt out of bed this morning. I know, shocking that I had a hard time getting up what with all the laundry, cleaning, cooking, and fighting to look forward to.

So, I got the oldest 4 off to school, which by the way, brought me to another conclusion. Now that my picture has been in the paper, people recognize me and it probably isn't in my best interest to drive my kids to school in my pajamas. I mean, I didn't drive my kids to school in my pajamas. I drove them in my car. But I was wearing pajamas. And no make-up. And my hair looked like this. I pulled up to the school, dropped the kids off, then quickly, but ineffectively tried to hide under my seat as a teacher walked up to my car to congratulate me on my sudden notoriety. Yep, that's not too embarrassing.

I came home from dropping the kiddos off, set my 2 little ones up with a gourmet breakfast of frozen waffles. Well, I toasted the baby's waffle, but my 3 year old literally ate his frozen. I don't know - he's a weird kid. So, I set them up and headed off to my computer to check my mail. A couple minutes later, I heard the water running full blast in the bathroom.

"What are you doing with the water? Turn it off, Clay!"

"I'm just washing my sticky hands, Mom."

"OK, do you need any help?" <--- stupid question. Of course he needs help. He's 3. He's crazy. He's in the bathroom alone. Alarms should have been going off at this point, but I was busy reading my mail. A few minutes later, he walked into my room holding a cup of steaming hot, cloudy white water. "Look Mom! I have hot chocolate!" He smiled up at me, proud as can be. "Ummm, how exactly did you make this 'hot chocolate'?" I followed him as he ran off to show me the ingredients in his hot chocolate recipe. Apparently, this particular 'hot chocolate' consisted of hot water, powdered coffee creamer, and soft soap. Mmmm, delicious, no? As I type this, it occurs to me - maybe that's why he had diarrhea this afternoon!

At this point, I took a break from my mail to clean up the half a box of cereal that was spilled on the family room floor. I let Clay know that I was not happy about this. He replied with, "But Mom, Brooklyn did it. She knocked over the box and she's only 1 so you can't be mad at her, remember?"

:::sigh::: "That's true, honey. She's only 1, but you're 3 and you know that you're not supposed to have cereal in the family room to begin with."

"It's ok Mom. I'll still eat it."

Gag. I don't think so. You guys saw what my carpet looks like. I can only imagine what hideousness lies within the fibers. Now I know there are some folks out there who keep their floors clean enough to eat off them. I'm not one of them.

OK, I got the cereal all vacuumed up. At least I like to think I got it all cleaned up, but my vacuum isn't the best in the world. I have a feeling I just crushed it into the carpet a little more. Oh well, it blends at least. Anyway, I cleaned that mess and sat back down to tackle some more mail and what do I see on the floor at my feet? A banana. An unpeeled, sliced up banana and a butter knife. What else would be on the floor of my bedroom?

I went to the library a little later in the day and some of the librarians recognized me from the article in the Tribune. At first I was a little giddy that someone recognized me and I thought it was pretty cool. Then my baby started flinging herself back in my arms screaming because she wanted me to let her down so she could run around the racks of books yelling and laughing and generally acting like a loon. And not to be outdone by his sister, my 3 year old started whining, "Can we go Mom? Mooooooom, can we go? MOOOOOM! I wanna go now! Are we gonna go now? Mom? MOM!" At this point, I stopped thinking it was cool that someone recognized me.

This afternoon, Brooklyn came into my room holding a glue stick and rubbing it all over her face, hair and neck. Perfume stick, glue stick, what's the difference. It works as hairspray too. Very powerful hairspsray.

That brings me to now. As I type, Brooklyn is throwing every article of clothing out of her drawers and onto the floor and I just don't have the energy to stop her. I guess I'll let her continue with her 'everything must go clearance sale' until she falls asleep, at which point I'll run around the house picking up clothes, papers, toys, misc. food, and a creative variety of "stuff" that covers every inch of my floor. The only time my house is clean is between 11:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. One day I'll be able to keep it clean during daylight hours. Right? Right?! Someone tell me that one day, my house will stay clean when the kids are awake.