What a Life!

It’s a signature Rush Limbaugh line, but I think it more accurately describes mothers with small children.

My days seem to revolve around feeding my children and then waiting for them to poop. Hoping that their poop won’t leak out and get on their clothes. It usually doesn’t, but it has enough times for me to worry about it.

We get up in the morning. Or I get up. I get up at 5:30 or so and have some time to myself. Somewhere sometime during the six o’clock hour, usually, Ben gets up. But he is more interested in Daddy than in me…thank goodness. When Steve stays up late on the weekend like he’s in college or something and then Ben gets up early and goes directly in to jump on Steve who is still lying in bed…I quietly laugh to myself. I may have half my brain tied behind my back, but I’m smart enough to go to bed at a responsible hour in case I get woken up early.

I get up at 5:30 and have some time to myself. I make sure both boys are up by 7:30, which is also around the time Steve leaves for work. I feed Joey and stash him in the swing while I fix Ben breakfast. Then with Joey safely in the swing and Ben coralled in his high chair with a bowl of food, I disappear for my daily shower.

I re-fill Ben’s bowl a couple times while I’m getting dressed. He always wants applesauce first, then yogurt. Like clockwork. I don’t even put the applesauce away after I put it on his Grapenuts because I know he’ll be asking for some more. Then he eats his yogurt…minus the fruit which he diligently picks out…and then he’s done. I try to be done fixing my hair and putting on makeup by that point. And yes, I put on makeup almost every day. Almost.

Not today, though. It’s pajama day. We’re not going anywhere today. There’s no room for changing my mind since I don’t leave the house without makeup on. That’s just how it is.

I get Ben down from his highchair, make the beds, finish getting dressed, and go check the laundry. By this time Joey has tired of his swing and is itching to get out. When he’s tired of his swing, his diaper is usually full as well.

I get worried these days when I change Joey and his diaper isn’t poopy. Most moms don’t say such things, but my baby had pyloric stenosis. Since nothing was getting through his digestive system, he wasn’t pooping. Ben used to poop once a week. Joey poops after almost every meal. If Joey pooped once a week like Ben did, I don’t know how I would handle it.

I change Joey’s diaper and then we go downstairs. Unless Ben’s diaper is stinky already. It takes him about a half hour after he eats breakfast. I’m his mother. I know.

So with both boys in fresh diapers, we venture downstairs. I do things I can do with a baby in my arms. Surf the web. Watch the previous night’s news that I taped. Get after Ben because he’s getting into stuff he isn’t supposed to. This morning I watched the rest of the Budweiser Shootout. I say the rest because we didn’t get home and start taping it until they were on lap 19. That’s okay. They said the next 50 laps were far more exciting anyway.

Joey only lasts for about an hour and a half. Then he goest down for his nap. I nurse him to sleep. It just works too well for me to change my ways. He’s taking hour-and-a-half to two-hour naps now. He stirs a little after 45 minutes (when he used to wake up) but he seems to go right back to sleep.

While Joey sleeps, I do things that require two hands. Post an entry on my blog. Knit. Something useful like paying bills or doing taxes. Some days I’m more motivated than others.

Then Joey wakes up and we start all over again. Feed him. Wait for him to poop. Change him again, and go do something I can do with a baby on my lap. Sometimes he’s happy in the bouncy seat. That’s where he is right now. Ben’s pushing around his shopping cart which is filled to the brim with all his little toys. He’s still wearing his pajamas too.

I don’t know what we’ll be having for supper tonight. The moms from playgroup told me I should try the slow cooker meals they have in the grocery store where you just dump it into the crock pot, set the time, and then eat it at supper time. Sounds great, in theory at least. My problem, though, is failing to plan ahead. Making something in a crock pot requires me to plan ahead eight to ten hours. It requires me to know in the morning when everything seems fine and dandy that at the end of the day I’ll be too tired to feel like cooking. Perhaps I am still in denial. Perhaps every day is like that. But I seem to do better with things I can fix in ten minutes after Steve gets home. Yeah, when Steve gets home and he can watch the boys while I do something real like cook.

Sometimes I feel like the only thing I do well is knitting. Perhaps its that I have something to show for my efforts. I mean, I may be good at changing diapers, but as soon as you change one, the next one is soiled and in need of being changed. No sense of accomplishment there. Nothing to show to anyone for them to admire.

Sewing is something I dream of doing once my kids are all in school. It takes too much effort to set up the machine, put the ironing board in a place where nobody will knock it over and burn themselves, make sure the machine hasn’t been re-set by busy little hands while I was pressing a seam, and then focus enough to not sew the wrong pieces together the wrong way. I’ve given up completely on making clothes. I hate making diapers, but I like mine better than anybody else’s that I can buy so I grin and bear it. I need to start thinking about making the next size up for Joey since it takes me forever to get them done (due to all the dragging of feet), and he’s growing fast. Quilting is a necessary evil for the glory of having pretty non-store-bought quilts.

Someday when my children are in school I will buy a new sewing machine. A Bernina perhaps. Not another Viking. I want something that doesn’t break down every time I use it…either due to age or over-engineering. Then perhaps I’ll sew again for the joy of sewing. Something I did when I was single and lonely and didn’t have half my brain tied behind my back.

Knitting is something I can easily cart around the house, something that can be done a stitch at a time. A row here, a row there. It’s the last remaining symbol of progress in a chaotic world. How I manage the think clearly enough to design anything is beyond me. Somehow I am compelled enough to do it that all the obstacles that get in the way of doing other non-amazing things like cooking or sewing a simple shirt.

For now I shall do what I can, even if it means accomplishing very little beyond keeping our clothes clean, stomachs filled, diapers fresh, and checkbook balanced. For that is all I can do with half my brain tied behind my back.

Someday I will do great things again. I’ll have something to show for my busy day. I’ll be able to go shopping without fear of losing a child or having to figure out where that thing they picked up belongs. I’ll be able to sew the correct pieces together with the correct sides together…most of the time. I’ll be able to fix a meal that takes more than ten minutes of my time. Something complicated, like a slow cooker meal made from scratch – you have to thaw the meat, cut up the vegetables…all of which requires planning ahead at least forty-eight hours. Someday I’ll be smart enough to do things like that again.

For now I shall enjoy hearing my three-year-old sing Old MacDonald Had a Farm and the Alphabet over and over again. I shall talk to my baby and listen to him babble back to me. We shall all wear our pajamas and the boys will play in the basement while I watch a movie in segments. Many segments. Starting something and sticking with it until it is finished is not something you can do with half your brain tied behind your back.

[Deep breath] Somebody’s tired of his bouncy seat and wants to be held. The other somebody is tossing an empty milkjug around the basement. (Where did he get that?) The washer needs soap. And two baskets of clean, folded clothes need to be put away so the dryer can be emptied. Enough now, enough. I must go do the things that I do for which there is never evidence of them having been done.