Sleep in? Ha!

Saturday night. My DH says "you can sleep in tomorrow, honey." That is one of my favorite sentences to hear-it ranks up there with "Here is $100. Go buy yourself something nice-nothing for the kids." So here for your entertainment is a timeline of the sleeping in experience. I wonder if it is only like this at my house...

6:32 a.m. The baby wakes up. DH takes her downstairs, leaving our door closed and the curtains closed. The electric blanket is on, got the bed all to myself...zzzzz...

6:41 a.m. 6-year-old DD enters. "Where's Ella? Where's Daddy?" "They are downstairs, I am sleeping in. Daddy might make you pancakes." That is enough info to get her out of the room.

6:48 a.m. 3-year-old DD enters with enough commotion to make me wonder if I should call the NFL or maybe sign her up for kick-boxing. Oh, and the cat comes in with her. I manage to eject her to find daddy, baby sis and pancakes, but the cat can stay.

7:04 a.m. Cat pounces on and bites my toe. Cat is undelicately ejected from the room. Sleeping in is not going so well...

7:18 a.m. Huge THUD shakes the whole house. I still don't know what it was, but since there were no wails or sirens afterward, I didn't go investigate.

I almost gave up, but here is the happy ending to the story. That was the last interruption, and after that I slept-until 9:30 a.m.!

This is the first time I've contributed to a blog. I know Patty and I are going to have tons of fun posting from the trenches, and I hope that it's just as much fun to read it. :)

the trenches

Motherhood: it is a fight. We battle messy floors. We tackle dirty dishes. We wrestle energetic children into naps. Many of the battles we fight are with our kids or the debris caused by their energetic needs. We put in one load of laundry; our kids spill enough juice and splash in enough mud to make two more. We "clean as we go" in the kitchen while making dinner, and as soon as the meal is over, the counter top is piled high with plates and forks and quickly crusting pots. And before we can think about attacking it, someone needs a new diaper or another cup of water.

We try our best to train our children to act properly so that they will one day emerge as productive citizens and, in the case of our family, faithful Christians. However, day to day, we may see little order and less progress. It seems that only once a week do I see a clean counter top while the sun is out. Once a month are all the floors swept in the same seven-day period. In order to stay sane, we must keep the goal in mind. We must run the race in order to finish. One day we will have the presence of mind to clean efficiently and enjoy the fruits of our labor, gazing at clear table tops and counters as we recline with a fresh cup of coffee and a magazine. And our houses will be eerily quiet because all the little mess-makers will have flown the nest.

As long as we don't compare ourselves too often to those whose kids have grown and who have honed their motherhood and housekeeping battle skills, as long as we don't become mired in landscapes of food-covered skillets and yesterday's breakfast dishes, as long as we remember that our kids won't need this intensive parenting forever, we will make it through to the other side: we will emerge as talented, fun, faithful women once more. We will have the friendship of our precious children to accompany us into old age. And we will watch them take up their swords and begin their own battles.