Just Survive until Bedtime...

The day dawned cold and crisp. No glorious sunshine awaited my sleep-deprived eyes, instead they were greeted with the gray-blue of a fall dawn and I could hardly wait to get out and enjoy it. Rolling over (a task which my growing abdomen greatly opposes), I groped to find the alarm clock, surprised to find that it was only 5:30. "What kind of person gets up at 5:30?" I questioned myself as I fluffed my pillow and attempted to fall back asleep. Only it was to no avail. The morning beckoned, and I could not stand idly by when there was so much to do. Getting ready as quietly as possible so as not to awaken my "super-sonic hearing children" I tiptoed down my squeaky hall determined to go out for a walk before they got up. I opened my door to freedom. Briskly putting one foot in front of another, I looked around me at the sheer silence and it was nearly overwhelming. What do I do with myself? I prayed, I thought, I planed, and I cut my walk short simply because I was bored and couldn't stand the silence. Shivering and feeling revived, I hopped into the shower, shocked that my house was still quiet and I was allowed the simple and yet mind-boggling freedom to perform this routine act--alone! And then, it began...

The eggs I make as an appeasement gift for my children (who are growing endlessly tired of eating cereal for breakfast), is thrown in my face. The house I have slaved over to clean, is destroyed in mere minutes. Caleb hangs onto my leg and cries, "Mommy sick", Selah follows me everywhere I go declaring my name in her whiniest voice, and I want to go back to bed. The diapers overflow with things to which I will not name, the cat I so vehemently insisted we have decides his litter box is too far and manages to fill my sons bed with his early morning offering, and the crying continues. Really, why did I get up? If you are thinking that my day proceeded to improve, you would be drastically wrong. Instead it was a sheer cliff to which we were fast approaching. A toilet drain going round and round of screaming, crying, pooping, runny noses, fevers, more screaming... By mid-afternoon, I had run squat out of ideas. No food was accepted, and yet they cried for food. No toy was good enough, no cuddle sufficient... they all ended in the same result: fussing, whining, crying. And I was at my limit. It is here that I insert my motto as a mother of children so closely tied in age... "just survive until bedtime." And survive I did. Because here I sit, in a house torn apart by both my children and myself in a desperate attempt to quiet them, in peace. And I am, indeed, alive. And as my swollen, aching self sits in denial and shock at the drastic change in pace, I realize that the freedom I strove for in the early morning hours of dawn are upon me once again. So I resign myself to another fateful day of sickness tomorrow, knowing that tonight is mine. And hoping desperately that the small tidbits of freedom I experience will give me the strength I need to face it all over again in the morning. Until next time!