The Juggling Act

I wrote this a few months ago, and never pushed "publish."  I revisited it today for some reason, probably because motherhood is kicking my trash this week and I needed the inspiration. 

~

I groan and roll over to silence the bleating alarm.  It’s 5:30 am. Between my anxiety-riddled dreams, soothing the two year old who was inexplicably awake three times during the night, and getting kicked repeatedly in the ribs by the four-year old who firmly believes Mommy and Daddy’s bed is his bed, I had closed my eyes for good about 4am.

Bleary eyed, I step in the shower, silently chanting my morning mantra: “Being tired never killed anyone. I will feel like a person if I can just make it to 10:00am. I will not die simply because it’s early morning.”

By 6:15 am, my household is reluctantly stirring, my makeup is hastily applied, and my first violin student of the day is beginning an E-flat major scale in the violin studio. I hit my knees in the dark living room, the shrieks of my boys’ first morning brawl echoing down the stairs.

“Dear Father,” I plead, “I’m not sure I have the energy to do this today. Please help me to be patient and kind to my children, even when I don’t want to be. Bless me with the energy and the stamina I need to get through this day.”

~

My second student of the day has just started tuning her violin when the studio door opens. My daughter, doubling as my babysitter this morning, is holding my four year old son by the hand.  “Mommy, my ear hurts,” he whimpers.

I excuse myself from the lesson, taking a brief look in my son’s ear to confirm yet another raging ear infection. I convince my poor, feverish son to take a syringe full of ibuprofen and hurry to place a call to the pediatrician. My sweet boy has never met an ear infection he didn’t have to have, and no run-of-the-mill course of antibiotics ever comes close to clearing the massive infections. The nurse gives me the last appointment of the day so I can still drive my daughter to her own violin lesson fifty miles away, then teach two more lessons in my studio, all before I have to leave for the appointment.

I choke back the bitter taste of guilt as I tuck a blanket around my little boy, turn on Phinneas and Ferb to help babysit, and head back to the violin studio, wondering how many more ear infections my son will get before the doctors start talking about a third set of ear tubes. While my student is perfecting her etude, my stomach is churning, knowing there’s no way we’ll be able to afford yet another surgery, especially now that we have no health insurance.

~

The guilt, the stretching and pulling in seventeen different directions, they are my constant companions. I could be a better mother if I didn’t have 22 violin students. I could be a better teacher if my students were the only thing I had to focus on. Days like this are a long walk across a tightrope strung over a pit of snarling lions: one slip-up, one late baby sitter, one dead van battery and it’s going to get ugly really fast.

~

There are other times too. The times when the teenager, who has struggled with crippling stage fright for years, has a brilliant recital performance and her smile lights up every corner of the recital hall.  The times where a young violinist and her mother beam with unexpected pride when they realize they’ve achieved something remarkably difficult. The moments when I giggle, witnessing my two sons wrestling like puppies on the living rooms floor. The day when my violinist daughter plays her Bach Partita so brilliantly and musically that it takes my breath away, leaving me in awe with tears in my eyes, despite the lunch debris spread all over the counter and the little brothers squabbling at a deafening volume.  Those are the times that remind me. This. This is what I’m supposed to do. This is where I belong. This is who I am.

So I’ll continue walking the tightrope, hitting my knees in the dark of the morning hours to plead for help, and ignoring the ever-present baskets of clean and dirty laundry.  I’ll mother, nurture, teach, guide, make music, chauffer kids to doctor appointments, rehearsals, and question my sanity daily.  I’ll giggle until my cheeks hurt with my kids around the dinner table, and I’ll stay up too late enjoying the only quiet moments in the day. And I’ll cry, and sing, teach, bandage scrapes, pray, and then hope against hope that it’s enough. For my students, for my children. For me. For God.

Sometimes

Sometimes I think "Enduring to the End" should just mean making it through bedtime with everyone alive.

Sometimes I firmly believe that four kids versus one parent at bedtime is a completely unfair ratio. 

Sometimes it's really hard to bite your lip and be an adult when the three year old yells "I don't like you right now, Mommy!"

Sometimes I skip brushing said three year old's teeth for all the above reasons.

Sometimes you read four verses of scriptures and say a hurried prayer while the baby screams his guts out, then feel guilty for hours later for not staying patient and kind during the bedtime routine.

Sometimes I think Diet Coke and chocolate chip cookies should be considered medicine. 

Sometimes I wonder if I ever won't be tired and cranky.

And then sometimes, we take a walk on a perfect spring evening.

And throw rocks in the irrigation ditch, listening to the little boys laugh hysterically.

And sometimes I catch little moments like this, and realize that I must be doing something right in the midst of all the chaos. And I'm grateful.

Monday mind dump

In the wee, frozen hours of this Monday morning, I took my dear sweet husband to the airport to board the first of several planes bound for Europe. Nope, not kidding. I know he is at least visiting Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Helsinki, Finland, and Rome. Yup. Rome at Christmas. Jealous, me? Of course not.

If you've hung around this blog for any length of time, (and why wouldn't you? The writing has been so incredibly riveting lately, especially the part where I just don't write for weeks on end...) you know that my husband's international travel habits and I don't get along so well. He's been international 3 times, and 2 out of those 3 times, someone has ended up in the ER, or gotten stitches, or a combination of the 2. I'm thinking tomorrow, I'll make a trip to the store for bubble wrap, duct tape, children's ibuprofen, and extra Diet Coke. That should keep us for eight days, right?

But here's some good news: my Christmas shopping for my kids is done. Thank you Amazon and your brilliant 2-day free shipping. A good portion of the non-Santa gifts are wrapped and under the tree as well, which as any 8 year old can tell you, is pure and complete torture! And also on the Christmas front, the tree has only tipped over once so far. I think that's a record.

People keep asking me if we're going to homeschool next year. While I'd be lying if I didn't say that the thought of kicking the girls out the door at 8:35 to go to school sounds like a good idea at least two mornings a week, we're also starting to find our groove. I don't know what will happen next year. I can barely remember what day it is, and that's on a good day. But, I do know that for the first time, my girls are starting to write cohesive, coherent paragraphs and papers. This is new, and I am proud. And, Ashlynn only throws a fit about division once a week now, so we're definitely making progress.

My baby still does not sleep through the night. Not even close. I have attempted night weaning twice, and it has failed miserably both times. Someday, I will sleep again.

Most of the time, I really love my job as a violin teacher, I do. But I'm really ready for Christmas break to roll it's way around here. Is that bad? Mostly, I want to not teach lessons at 6:15 am for at least a week or two. And I wouldn't mind having an afternoon or two to lounge around in my pajamas, read a novel, and eat Nutella out of the jar with a spoon. Perhaps I should inform my children of my plans.

Speaking of, how is it that I have gone my whole life without buying a jar of Nutella until now? I will have to buy extra for the next 30+ years to make up for it.

When the going gets tough, the tough write poetry

I've been trying to nightwean the baby. The thinking is, he's almost a year old and should be able to last the night without nursing 47 times. I tend to be a bit less than pleasant when I've been woken up multiple times all night long for a year solid. But since I'm not a cry-it-out mom, I've been trying for something more gentle. I think it will work eventually, but let's just say I didn't know it was possible to be more tired than I already was.

We commenced our adventures in homeschooling this morning with poetry. Abby and Ashlynn were supposed to be reading and then writing their own poetry. So they started reading their poems, outloud. Each trying to out do the other when it came to loudness. It was then that I declared that they were to read all poems to themselves. Then the writing commenced. They were grouchy, I was grouchy and sleep deprived. I was wondering if I could send them to public school just for a day or two.  So then, I texted a friend, complaining, venting. Bless her, she wrote me back in rhyme. And so for most of the rest of the day, our messages were in couplet form. Credits to Morgan in red.

Grammar, poetry, sentences, you stink.
Working on English is a waste of ink.

My sister, my brothers, they're driving me crazy.
I wish I could just watch TV and be lazy.

Haiku isn't hard.
Sometimes it doesn't make sense.
Refrigerator.

Pulling out wipes is lots of fun.
This making of messes is never done.

Speaking in rhymes is ever so amusing.
Except for my girls, it is confusing.

Tell them it's easy and really a gas!
They just have to focus, they'll get it, en masse!

Now the time has come for me to shower.
When I am done, I shall smell like a flower.

Showers lovely.
They keep me from being fugly.
(I think this one was my favorite of the whole day!)

The word "fugly" gets you extra credit.
I laughed really hard when I read it.

Ian and Max are both super snotty.
They wipe boogers on me so I can feel like a hottie.

Why must they always wipe it on Mom?
A tiny little booger bomb?
(I never said it was going to be uplifting poetry!)


And then we switched to limmericks:

There once was a mom who was tired,
Because all her kids were so wired.
She tied them up tight,
And turned out the light,
And said "If you don't go to sleep, you're all fired."

Lest you think that today was all about bad texted poetry, we did actually something. This is Ashlynn's masterpiece of the poetry unit so far, written while studying Shel Silverstein and hyperbole.

Isn't she cute? She had a piano recital tonight and was amazing! Musical and a writer! I'll keep this one...

Stinky Boy

by Ashlynn Smith

There once was a boy who would not take a bath.

He hated using soap as much as doing math.

He smelled like stinky fries and rotten eggs.

He had beetles crawling up and down his legs.

He never changed his clothes and it made his skin turn black.

He nearly gave his mom a great big heart attack.

But one stormy day he got caught out in the rain.

It washed the boy all clean, and he didn't even complain.

So there you have it. Stacy, Morgan, and Ashlynn. Poet Laureates. We're excited about our upcoming book tour. 

And now, for some poetry

Scriptures read.

Prayers said.

Baby fed. (And fed, and fed)

Exhausted.

To bed.

Excuses, excuses

Yes, I am still alive.

Barely.

As for my unexplained absence from the computer, I have some good excuses.

Wanna hear them? (Of course you do. I know you do. Why else do you come to my blog?)

Remember how we decided to homeschool? And how I worried that I was going to go a little crazy? Yeah. So here's the thing. I'm still convinced it's the right decision for our family, but I also think it's going to end up the kind of full-blown crazy that only my family can pull off.

We're homeschooling using k12. The great thing about it is that all your curriculum for the whole year is shipped to you free at the beginning of the school year. Some of the instruction is done online, but all the reading books, science experiments, and even a blow-up globe ended up on our porch on Monday afternoon courtesy of the UPS guy. My husband took one look at all the stuff strewn everywhere and quipped, "Are you sure they didn't send you everything for K through 12?"

I had great dreams of getting everything perfectly organized, catalogued, and ready for a grand and ceremonious start. The girls thought Monday's delivery was Christmas and wanted all the boxes opened at once. Abby begged to start homeschooling atleast 572 times before Monday was over. it was as good a time as any to introduce her to the word "perseverate."

This is what my floor looked like Monday afternoon. And this is after we unpacked two full boxes. Do me a favor and ignore the pile of laundry on the floor. I seem to have forgotten how much laundry is involved in a household of six, and Mt Idon'twannafoldlaundry had once again grown to epic proportions.

So now, two days later, we've worked on English literature, Math, Science, and Art. Still to come is grammar, vocabulary, spelling, and history. (Sheesh!) I'm still trying to figure out how the puzzle pieces all fit, and how we're going to do all of that plus the hours of practicing and lessons. Like I said, I had grand intentions of getting completely organized, and was going to type and display lists and schedules and lists of schedules, but since this is the first time in a week I've had a chance to sit down at the computer, naturally I'm blogging about it instead.

So why besides the pile of curriculum in my front room have I not been able to accomplish anything, you ask? Let me show you one little picture.

Yes, this would be my darling Ian, who at the time of this picture had just discovered the wonders of watermelon, taco meat, and fresh guacamole eaten off a spoon.

He looks very sweet. Looks are deceiving.

Remember how he was the easy baby? The baby that slept? Well, now it's all about Ian's revenge.

This little boy seems to have forgotten what it means to sleep, or at least sleep consistently. Where I used to be able to set a stopwatch by his naptimes, now we could have a two and a half hour nap, or a five minute nap. Who knows. And once he finally decides to wind down and sleep at night, I could be required to put him back to sleep 1-4 times or more before I finally give up and go to bed myself.

He's crawling everywhere, but his favorite is cruising along the furniture and walls at alarming speed. Today he reached the dubious milestone of learning to unroll entire rolls of toilet paper. Sigh.

And with all those milestones comes the sheer delight of separation anxiet and we have a wicked case in full swing. With three others, I thought I had seen my share of it, but this one might be the worst. Or maybe I've blocked out all the others, which is a distinct possibility. What I didn't remember is constantly having a weepy, sad, whining baby pulling himself up on your leg, or having that same clingy cling monster scream and try desperately to climb out of the shopping cart and into your arms in the grocery store just because a stranger dared to say "Hi" to him.

So I'm tired. Much too tired. Like probably more tired than when he was a newborn tired. And I know it will pass, and I have high hopes that he'll eventually sleep and that I won't have to nurse him back to sleep every 45 minutes all night long. (Last night I was half asleep and telling Ian "There's no more milk, baby, it's all gone." If only you could reason with an 8 month old...)

So tell me it will get better. Tell me I won't always feel this overwhelmed about homeschooling. Tell me I will sleep again someday. Tell me you're bringing me chocolate and Diet Coke. Tell me my husband might someday stop traveling. Tell me you understand. Tell me a joke. Tell me anything! (I might be a bit starved for adult interaction, can ya tell?)

Happy 7th of July!

OK, I know I'm three days late and way too many dollars short to count, but have we had some craziness over here!  The good kind of crazy, but crazy is crazy, and when you add any kind of crazy to the crazy we already have, well, you get the picture.

A week ago, my darling Ashlynn, my born on the freeway baby, turned 8.  How this is possible, I don't know, but there was no way on earth she was going to let us forget it.  Turning 8 is a big deal when you're a Mormon, so not only did I find myself planning for a birthday, but also a birthday party, an activity for her actual birthday, ("What are we going to do for my actual birthday, Mom?  Because I know we're having a party on Friday and my baptism on Saturday, but what are we going to do for my actual birthday?  Because it's my actual birthday and we have to do something!") a baptism and brunch afterwards, but also planning to get out of town for our annual 4th of July in Torrey, and then prepping to drop the girls off for a few weeks with Tom's parents in Kansas.  Did I mention that all of this took place last week while my husband was out of town? 

Yeah, crazy.

So in the spirit of the good blogger mom, I sat Ashlynn down and "interviewed" her for my blog, which made her all excited because she was "going to be famous on mom's blog."  Love that kid.  She's so good for my ego.

Favorite food: Fried chicken, hot dogs, hamburgers.
Favorite color: Blue
Favorite Movie: "Chestnut"  (Huh?  I've never even heard of this movie!)
Favorite TV Show: "Good Luck Charlie"  (The whole family watches this one.  Including Tom.)
Favorite Music: Taylor Swift
Best thing to do for a birthday party: Go to Seven Peaks and then have a sleepover.
Favorite Thing to Do With Family: "The fun things we do together.  But not chores."
Most exciting thing about being 8: Getting baptized.

So Wednesday, Ashlynn's actual birthday, I rounded up a bunch of friends and suckered them into coming to Trafalga with me.  If you're wondering, 1 pm on Wednesday is not the best time to go to Trafalga with a bunch of little kids without your husband.  It was hot, sticky, crowded, and Max had approximately 32 meltdowns by the time we left.  The big kids had fun, though, and when all the adults had had their fill of the screaming and whining, we piled more kids than legally should have fit in our and headed home for pizza and a movie.  Ashlynn declared it the most fun birthday ever, so it must have been ok.

Friday, I wrangled up most of the same friends (why are they all still friends with me?!) and we headed to Seven Peaks.  I was incredibly proud of myself for getting all four kids ready and out the door a few mimutes early, until I realized I had no idea where my wallet was.  We searched the house.  We searched the car.  Then I remembered that I had taken all four kdis to Target with me the day before and I sighed, knowing that we were going to be heading to Seven Peaks in Provo via a Target in Salt Lake.  Luckily, my wallet was intact, and we made it just over an hour late.  Remarkably, we all had a good time, and no one got lost, sunburned or drowned, so I'm counting it a grand success.

Baptism day dawned bright and very early.  Ashlynn was bouncing off the walls, and Tom and I were propping our eyes open with toothpicks.  I had been up until an obscene hour cooking for the brunch, and Tom's flight from whereeverhewasthatweek didn't even get into the airport until after midnight. 

There is something very special about watching  your child so excited for such a milestone.  Ashylnn's smile already can light up a room, but on Saturday morning, she was grinning from ear to ear non-stop.  My mom made Ashlynn's dress, and it was amazing.  Ashlynn picked out the pattern, and my mom had no idea the amount of work that was going to go in it- there was 9 yards of lace in the skirt alone!  In a happy coincidence, the fabric that my mom picked for the baptism dress was the exact same fabric that she picked for her blessing dress 8 years before.  Once Ash gets too big for the baptism dress, I'm going to have them both preserved for her.

The service itself was intiamte and sweet.  Ashlynn played the opening song on the piano, which had me crying before two notes were up, and Abby impressed me with her ability to put together a musical number in less than a week.  Being with Ashlynn after the baptism, helping her back into her dress, gave me an inkling of what it will be like to help her into her wedding dress in a few short years. 

Brunch was a success, and a few hours later, we threw everything in our van and headed to Torrey for our annual Fourth of July party.  Unfortunately, the town of Torrey decided to do all their celebrating on Saturday, so we missed the pie eating contest and the parade, but we made our own fun.  We rode four wheelers, we played in the water, we napped and relaxed, and we shot off a lot of fireworks.  Neither of the boys appreciated them, and one of the funniest moments of the whole trip came when Max announced "I so scared!  I go inside and go to bed!" 

It turns out that we're not great picture takers.  When I came home and started downloading pictures from the weekend, I realized that we had taken a grand total of one picture the whole weekend.

That's Ian, passed out asleep.  He was fed up with being in the carseat on the way there, so out of desperation, I gave him the cookie part of an Oreo.  It may not be the most nutritionally sound choice, but it obviously did the trick.

Two days later, we were back in the car.  Tom's parents live on a farm in Kansas, and we don't get to spend much time with them.  The girls have been begging to see the farm, the grandparents have been begging to see the girls, so we met up with them in Grand Junction, CO.  After spending the ngiht playing together, Grandma and Grandpa took Abby and Ashlynn and went East, and we took the boys and headed West.  The girls are thrilled to be spending time on a real farm.  There are at least 3 litters of kittens, 4 dogs, 20 chickens, a bunch of horses and cows, and a duck.  They're staying for about three weeks, give or take.  Which makes for a very quiet ride home and an oddly empty house. 

So there you have it.  We've never had such a nutty summer, but for us, the traveling is over.  Max and Ian and I are going to hang out, go swimming, and  try and dig ourselves out of the 7 loads of laundry that are piled all over the house.  (And I would love to know how one 3 day trip can turn into 7 loads of laundry!  Seriously!  It defied the laws of physics.)  Tom is going to travel to whereeverhesgoingthisweek and we'll see him when we see him. 

And we're definitely going to nap.  *Yawn*

My name is Stacy and...

I'm addicted to sleep.

My kids are trying their hardest to break me of that addiction, but it's so hard.

Some days, it's all I can think about.  I obsess over whether or not I can sneak in a nap, fight the heavy eyes that inevitably arrive around 5pm, and swear every day that this will be the night that I'm going to bed as soon as the kids do.

The cravings  for sleep become especially bad around 5:30 am, when my bright sunny baby boy takes the "break mom from her sleeping habit" shift and keeps me awake until it's time to get ready for the day, at which time Ian gets to go back to bed and the other kids take over.

Nice of Ian to be pulling his weight, right?

Things went especially well last Friday, when Ian's wakeup call came at 5am courtesy of a wet diaper soaked to his armpits.  Once I changed him, he was all kicks and grins.  I groaned, realizing I was done sleeping for the night, and hauled downstairs so the other four people snoring upstairs could continue sleeping in peace.  (And yes, I did shoot daggers at all of them as I went downstairs.) By 6:30, the other kids were stirring and Ian was ready to go back to bed.  All I wanted was to close my eyes for a few minutes.  I told the girls to watch Max and went back upstairs.  Just as I had drifted back into my oh-so-peaceful slumber, I was awoken by the shrieking of the smoke detector.

Do you have any idea how alarming (yes, pun intended,) that is?

Abby had decided to make eggs for breakfast. 

Needless to say, she is no longer allowed to use the stove without an adult present, and our house smelled like burned eggs for the rest of the day.  (Yummy!)

I don't think I've actually slept through the night since somewhere around 2006.   I don't think my poor body knows how to sleep that long anymore.

So like I said, I'm obviously an addict.  If they have a 12 step program, sign me up.  Just think how much I could get done if I didn't have to sleep every day! 

Naps are wasted on the young.  They never appreciate them.