My Real Monday

In an effort to be real and genuine here--voice my frustrations and the fun things as well--let me share about my Monday morning.

Started out the day at the blessed hour of 4:30 AM. Poor Tate woke up with his on-again-off-again-on-again fever. Keep in mind my insomnia kept me up until midnight. Dear Lord, help me. Oh, and of course I had a migraine as well. Felt it coming last night but didn't take any medicine to prevent it...so some Ibuprofen for Tate and some migraine meds for me. Back to sleep we went. Phew!

Two hours later, Max comes in our room, a little panicked, because his alarm clock was blinking 12:00. The electricity apparently went off sometime during the night and Max was afraid he had overslept. As if!!

Buck got the kids breakfast while I jumped in the shower, then came downstairs to find Zoe had knocked over her full glass of orange juice on the floor. I get Tate out of his seat, get Zoe out of her chair and set about cleaning up the sticky mess--I forgot how far orange juice can spray! Get that mess cleaned up and look over in the living room to see why Tate is being so very quiet. He pulled a nearly-full box of baby wipes out of the box, one by one. The ENTIRE box is spread around him on the floor. After saying several "NO NO"'s to him, he starts crying. Goodness.

Get that mess cleaned up, get the boys ready to go out the door to the bus stop. Max is ready before Charlie (during this time I had a tough-love conversation with Chars about putting his shoes back where they should be, then he wouldn't have to stress out about what shoes he was going to wear--if all of them are where they are supposed to be, you can pick whatever shoes you want! Good grief!). In the chaos of Charlie picking shoes, Max starts to head up the street to the bus stop without Charlie. I'm standing on the driveway with Z and T watching Charlie SCREAM at Max to stop, and Max pretends like he can't hear him--and actually starts running up to the bus stop at this point. Charlie is standing down on the end of the driveway, now in tears. I get tears in my eyes too. Seriously, this is how I'm going to send my children off to school today?

So I get shoes on all of us, and we give Charlie big loves, and walk with him to the bus stop, trying to get him to stop crying. I get up to the bus stop, have a heart-to-heart with Max about being the older brother, being the example, being the leader, and how sad Charlie was about Max running off without him. Well, wouldn't you know, Max starts crying! For crying out loud, seriously! So I have two sad boys, one very frustrated mama, and it is not even 8:30 in the morning. All I could think was, we have nowhere to go but up from here.

So while the vast majority of the time, I am very, very thankful that we have kind, patient, loving children...we have our moments. And while I try to keep things in perspective, the little trying moments such as this morning can get me down. So thank you for allowing me to be real, for letting me share the fun happy times, but also portray the reality of our busy life trying to raise good kids. Tomorrow is a new day! :)