Laugh With Moms

Today was one of those days that just made me so happy to be exactly where I was.  My six year old son has had a bad cough and a slight fever the past two days and this morning after the holiday weekend did not feel good enough to go to school.  My husband and I had planned to go golfing so my little one staying home from school put a different slant on those plans.  On a side note my son wrote a note in his kindergarten writing to us that said, “TKU MOMANDDAD FR TKG CRMEWNIMSK  ILVMOMANDDAD”.  Translation:  Thank you mom and dad for taking care of me when I am sick.  I love you mom and dad.  Reading that little note made tears come to my eyes and then made me laugh because he was putting out all the stops for a sick day.  Anyway the two girls were scheduled to go to the home daycare they attend one day a week.  I got the girls ready and drove them to “school”.  When I got back to the house, my husband and son were dressed and ready for a day on the golf course.  My son had the biggest smile on his face and thanked me on the way out the door for letting home stay home and come golfing with us.  We then had to have a big discussion that this was a very special day, not to get used to it, you have to go to school to learn all the great things like writing and reading,…etc.  So we had an awesome day on the golf course, it was beautiful and sunny, my son got to drive the golf cart with the help of us, we had lunch together, we played all right and got in all 18 holes.  My son looked at me while we were eating lunch and said, “this was the best day ever”.  I was so glad that we decided he could stay home and come with us to the golf course.  It was so nice for my husband and I to have that time to spend with just him and he was so happy to have both our attention for the day.

We then went to pick up the girls and came home to play.  They decided to make all these signs and hang them up around the house that said, “ILVMOM”, “ILVDAD”, “ILVGMU (grandma)”.  Very cute.  Then they turned on some music (the KIDZ BOP CDs they have been getting from the McDonalds happy meals-great toy by the way).  I was reading in the chair and looked over to see my youngest just dancing away with her dollie, not a care in the world.  I wanted to take a picture, but knew it wouldn’t do the moment justice.  When she caught me watching her, she just smiled and kept on dancing.  Completely adorable.  Then all three climbed in my lap and we read books for about 20 minutes with no one fighting or pushing for space.  We were all just content to be where we were at that moment.  It was a great day.  Life is good.

Last Saturday started like any other.  I woke up around 7 am, looked out the window to check to see if it was raining.  This is important because if it is raining I don’t have to wake up all three kids for an 8am soccer game.   This particular Saturday, it was raining and I was thanking the weather gods for another glorious rainy morning.  I jumped on my email just to make sure that the game was in fact cancelled when I read the subject of the email from the soccer coach:  “The game is on.  See you in 15 minutes.”  So that sent me immediately running up the stairs to arouse the 3 sleepy children and encourage them in a nice pleasant voice to “move their behinds we have a soccer game to get to” (about 10 times in a matter of 10 minutes).   As I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off, my husband quietly says, “you know, the game can be cancelled if you want it to be.”  This made me pause for a second, ponder that for 2 seconds and then quickly decide that I would like to be “supermom” today (which in hindsight was my biggest mistake of the day…never do that!).  So I bustle the kids and all the gear into the car hoping for a little help from the kiddos in doing their own seatbelts.  No such luck and we finally pulled out of the driveway at 8:05am.  Meanwhile I was trying to do some deep yoga breathing and telling myself that she’s only four and it is OK if she misses half of the game.  Anyway we got to the field and everything was soaking wet and a nice misty rain was falling from above.  My daughter had a blast playing soccer in the rain and even scored a goal.  Nice.  Meanwhile my two year old could not be put down on the wet grass and completely detested the misty rain that was continually falling in her face.  My son continually badgered me with requests to go to the playground which was about 200 yards from the soccer field and was greeted with an escalating ”no” each and every time.  I don’t know how many times I explained to him the “reasons” for not letting him which included by the way, scary people who would like nothing more than a whiny 6 year old, your sister has to watch you play every sport under the sun (well rain today), the playground is a puddle of mud and ending with a resounding “because I said so!”.  Anyway eventually the game ended and we all piled into the car for some munchkins from Dunkin Donuts and a short-lived stay at home.  At around 10:30 we had to leave to get my son’s pictures for baseball which was the last place I wanted to be with three children under the age of six.  I had the 6 year old running around with his teammates and the other two running up and down the bleachers in the gym while I was trying to fill out paperwork for the pictures and continually shooting my eyes in three different directions trying to monitor my children’s whereabouts.  Whew, sweat was poring down my back and my patience was at an all time low.  And as always the pictures were running behind and the wait was excruciating.  Right after that we all had to run to my son’s baseball game where my 4 year old daughter decided to pull out her worst behavior in about 2 years.  I would say, “don’t push your sister” and she would look right at me and push her.  This resulted in multiple time outs which did nothing to improve her behavior.  A friend at the field, took one look at my haggard look and asked if she could help in anyway.  Which I appreciated tremendously, but really I just needed to get these kiddos home where I hoped, if there was a god, that  some of them would take a long leisurely nap.  Once we got home, I put my daughter in timeout for her behavior at the ball field and within 2 seconds she was out.  The poor thing just needed some rest after a long week of activity and it showed in her behavior.  After the 2 youngest took their naps, the day took on a much nicer and slower pace that resulted in lots of fun and laughter and taught me three important things along the way: 1) insist on naps when the behavior is horrible 2) you can turn it around even when the day looks like a total loss 3) being supermom is completely overrated.  Here’s to fun Saturdays whatever those days might look like.

It is Saturday morning and tonight can’t come quick enough.  I had to wake my cherubs up early for an 8am soccer game that got cancelled minutes after they aroused from a good nights sleep.   So we have all been up since 7:30 am (in my house that is kind of early-thank goodness!) and since the moment they were awaken they have been in each other’s business.  When you start early with that stuff you know it is going to be a long day.  Around 9am today I threw out there, “when will the babysitter be here?” which stopped my son mid-fight (he does not like to have babysitters!) and started a bunch of questions.  “Which babysitter are we having?”, “When is she coming?”  “Are you and daddy going on a date?” “What time will you be home?”…   Sometimes the babysitter can’t come soon enough on a day like today.  So you know what I did?  I put everyone into action and we cleaned this pig sty of a house with lots of complaints and groans, especially from me.  But it worked because it gave them something busy to do with their hands and they started to work together to get it done faster.  That doesn’t mean I am not looking forward to our babysitter coming as soon as possible, but it is making the wait a little bit more enjoyable.