Too Little Time

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed with school. I don't know what people do that have 8 children or even more. I can barely keep up with 3.

I try and keep them all in the kitchen after school to do homework. But Dane has to do research on the computer and he doesn't know how to do that yet. He needs Mom to sit with him and show him how to use a Search Engine. Meanwhile, Deanna is complaining because she has a spelling test the next day and finally brought her words home. However, the scanner/printer is out of black ink.

"Just scan it to a PDF file, then choose the print option and change the printer to the HP," I tell her.

What are you saying? Are you speaking English? I remember many situations where IT people were explaining some application to me and I was totally convinced they weren't speaking English. She needs to be shown how to do this "change the printer" thing.

Meanwhile, Daelyn has escaped. With no one sitting at the table reading his homework directions to him, he's taken advantage of the lag in time to run outside and play. When I finish with Dane and Deanna, I head back to the kitchen. The spaghetti sauce is bubbling nicely, but Daelyn is still gone. I send Dane out to fetch him. 15 minutes later, he returns.

"We need to do your homework," I pronounce, a little shortly. I try to juggle phone calls and preparing dinner and doing preparations for the next day's lunches while he works on his work. Water bottles from today have to be taken out of their insulated pack, refilled, and put in freezer. Drinks for tomorrow need to be readied. I glance at the lunch menu for the next day. Great! I don't have Lunchables and Wednesday is Lunchables day. And there's no time to run to the store. I'll just have to make do.

In the morning, I make porridge for breakfast (today's hot cereal morning), then begin the task of lunches again. Each child wants something different. Deanna wants cheese and crackers. Daelyn wants mac-n-cheese, which I have to make, and Dane's feeling bad and doesn't want anything. What to do about Dane? Maybe soup will taste good to him and not hurt his throat going down.

I put juice on the table - the boys get one kind, Deanna another. Then I carefully pour Daelyn's antibiotic and put it out while the porridge is simmering. No children yet. I put Probiotics at each child's place - as much as they've been on antibiotics lately, they need to add some good bacteria into their digestive systems.

I grab scriptures and spelling words for review. One boy wanders into the kitchen from outside with the dog in tow. Oh, yeah, I think. I need to get his sinus rinse ready. I begin to wash out and disinfect his bottle in preparation for today.

All told, I review three sets of spelling words every morning (four if Deanna's remembered her Spanish words), a monthly and a weekly scripture, and review vocabulary. I make lunches, dole out medicines, answer questions, review schedules (Deanna has PE on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Dane has it on Tuesday, Daelyn on Friday, except Daelyn's has been changed to Thursday this week), make sure everyone has the clothes they need for the day, make sure Deanna doesn't have a volleyball game, talk with the children about what's happening in the evening, etc. I just feel like the evenings are too short and the mornings are too crowded.

There's Deanna's hair to brush, the boys have to be reminded to brush their teeth and put their lunch boxes and water bottles in their backpacks, EVERYONE has to be reminded to clear their stuff off the table (or Donovan climbs up and finished off the people food), and one day last week, we were headed out to the van when I noticed Dane was still in his tennis shoes from walking the dog, not his school shoes.

Too much for one little mommy. I'm overwhelmed by the needs of my children. Just keeping them on task is enough to drive anyone crazy, not even taking into consideration all the other things I do for them daily, grouped before school and after school.

It's not that they're helpless. I think the issue is just that they are each involved in their own things. Yesterday morning, when I had to run and get my bath before taking them to school, I had Deanna quiz Dane on his spelling words. Very often they do that for each other. But they never think of it themselves. I have to put the words in their hands and tell them to do it.

Daelyn can't read well enough yet to follow directions on his homework, so he needs me to sit right with him. And Deanna always has this problem or that problem to which I must attend. Dane seldom asks for anything. He studies on his own and I rarely even know what he's working on. However, this has created problems in the past with him waiting until the last minute to work on a big project, so I work hard at quizzing him about what he needs to do.

My father called week before last and asked me to do something for him at 3:30. I just laughed. From 2:50, when I leave to pick up the children, until around 8 pm, there's no peace and not a free moment in our house. Unless you've sat at our kitchen table in the morning, observing the organization equal to the Academy Awards Show, you'd never quite appreciate what we accomplish from 7:30 to 8:15 each morning.

Nine months is such a long time to have to deal with all these "issues". I'm already counting the days til summer and peace in our home.

But I better run. I have a dishwasher to unload and laundry to start.