Day In The Life Of A Mother Of Four

Here is a little back information so my story make a little sense. Up until about a year and a half ago nine people and one cat live under one roof. At about that time I moved out. I now live ten minutes down the road. Oh and I took my cat with me. So since than there has been only eight people. If you have read any of my other blogs you would know that one of my sister recently past away in January. And at the beginning of February my younger brother got a new job and move out. He live downtown which is far enough away but still close as my parents house is in the country. Now there only five people which is a bit weird when I think about it, because it doesn’t seem like that many. Anyway another thing you should know about my family is that three of my siblings have disabilities that require extra help. Two have wheelchairs. So doing things, like getting ready in the morning, taking a bit longer. Last thing to consider i am one person and my parents are two (Mom and dad). 

Before I get to the story, this blog is not written to complaint about how hard life is and how this time sucks and that my parents should never leave home. Ever. I am writing this blog because no matter how detailed you are in planning your life, things change. For the better, for the worst, they just change and you have to deal with it. If you can’t deal with what life throws at you, you are not going to make it. Here’s a tip don’t deal with it alone. Praying helps and so does having a little faith.  There is a country song that says it all “tough times don’t last, tough people do”. I can’t remember what the song is or who it is by at this time. 

Please note this not a typical day in our house hold. It just happened to be a day that the next day I was thinking “hey I need to write a blog, ooo, yesterday was interesting and I learned something”. So without further ado here is a Wednesday in the life of me mothering four.

Night before– go to bed at midnight and set alarm on cell phone for 6:45am (don’t have a alarm clock, as long as I remember to plug in the phone it works good too.)

6:35am– youngest wakes up and yells down the hall “hello, hello is it morning yet?” I roll over look at my phone and notice that I still could have been sleeping for another ten minutes, and yell back “no, go back to sleep.” And put the covers over my head.

6:40am– youngest yells again “now is it morning? I see light outside” I check my phone again and yell back “no not morning, five more minutes, stop yelling” (like how I added stop yelling as I’m yelling my answers back to him)

6:42am– yet again I hear “is it morning?” And yet again I look at my  phone, this time I figure that I’m probably not going to fall back asleep for three minutes. So I answer “yah”. Before I can even sit up and get the covers off there is a five year in my face saying “good morning Courtney”. He is all happy and smiles and I think, ugh how can you be so happy so early (I’m not really a morning person).

6:50ish am– I’m working on feeding him breakfast and keeping him quiet because everyone else is still sleeping because  they don’t need to be up until 8am. Youngest little man needs to be at school by 8am (bus by 7:30am).

7:05am– with breakfast done next task is getting dress. This process will take the next fifteen minutes because five years can talk your ear off, but they aren’t good multi-taskers.

7:20ish am–  with clothes on and coat, mitts, hat and snow pants by the door. You realize that even though he could possibly get everything on and make it to the bus on time I’m the only adult in the house and the other two siblings are still sleeping. So for the next half hour I try and do breakfast dishes, and switch the washer and dryer, all with a five year old helping. 

7:55am– help arrives. Yay. Another adult to get the other two up and out the door to day program. Spend the next few minutes explaining why the youngest can’t bring his vtech (this is a handheld computer game that is sorta like a game boy. For all that don’t know) to school.

8:05am– drop youngest off at school. I tell him that if he is very good at school today then after dinner we will play a board game. Good thing kindergartens stay outside to play before going in at the bell. Don’t have to sign him in. Say “goodbye” but only get a have hearted one back because the dump truck he found is more interesting. On my way out another little boy ask very loudly “hey, why is she wearing pjs at school?” I just smile and leave. 

So that is three siblings (all brothers) set for the day. Number four is my sister, she is not all home this week because she is in the hospital. A friend went to see her during the day so I can go to class.

9:00am– I catch the city bus and ride it an hour to school. 

10:05– I sign into class and start working on homework and hand in my assignment that I finished. (To hand in an assignment I must attend class for at least hour and half that day.)

10:45am– I get a call from the youngest school saying that  I need to pick him up from school early because he is not being nice. I ask my teacher if I can still hand in my assignment even though I have not been there for the minimum time. He says yes. Whoo who!

11:00am– catch the bus back to my truck. Bus ride takes another hour. I get a text from my friend about my princess. She is in a happy mood until she pulls something out and needs the doctors to put it back in. But she was still a princess when my friend left.

Noon– stop by my families offices to print off some kindergarten worksheets.

12:30ish pm– arrive to pick up youngest. He sees me walk into the office and asked me “why are you here to get me school is not over yet?” We talked about why I was there and packed up the rest of his lunch to finish at home.

12:45ish pm– finish up lunch and start working on homework at the dinner table. Since he doesn’t get homework other then reading, the worksheets I printed come in handy. We spend the next hour and half doing homework. (He get five worksheets done and I read the same paragraph again and again. And if you asked me what the paragraph was about I couldn’t tell you.)

2:30pm– now that school would be over now and I would be usually going at this time to pick him up from school. We get into our evening routine.  We read the books that was actually sent home for homework.

3:00pm– my other two brothers (the jokester, and the middle brother) arrive home. They had a good day.  Spend the next two hours getting everyone settled, listened to music, playing with toys or having a bath. And try to make dinner and lunches for tomorrow.

5:00pm– dinner time!  Getting everyone settled took a little longer so not so much time to make a fancy dinner, so hotdogs and corn. Yummy. I set the youngest and the middle brother at their tables and let them start while I help the jokester eat. Within 5 minutes everyone is just about done. I guess hotdogs are a hit.

5:10pm– everyone is clean from dinner and on to playing so more or just listening to the radio. So I clean the dishes quick and eat my dinner In between changing over the washer and dryer again.

6:00ish pm– after not watching cartoons for three days I figured that a movie was due. So the four of us sat quietly and watched “tinker bell”, with popcorn.

7:30ish pm– bedtime routine. Now because we watched a movie time was a little off. Usually the youngest is in bed by this time not starting to go to bed so I tried my best to hurry the process along without him knowing that is what I was doing. Our routine: tidy any toys, snack, pjs, bathroom, story, goodnights and tuck in.

7:50pm– bedtime routine for the jokester and the middle brother. Usually I start their routine just after 8pm but I didn’t want to sit down I was on a roll.  I turned the hockey game on in their room since it was still a little early for them. Our routine: snack, bathroom and changes, and tuck in. 

8:20ish pm– everyone in bed. Yay. But I’m not quite finished, I start the washer, write in everyone’s books and agendas, check to see if there is dirty dishes. Yup popcorn bowls. Go to wash them and notice that the eggs I boiled a couple hours ago to make lunches I hadn’t gotten to yet are sitting in the pot in the sink. . So I make four lunches then wash all dishes from making four lunches. I’m not good at peeling eggs at all. (The next morning I find out that two are buying lunches because it’s outing day. So I didn’t have to make eggs, because the youngest doesn’t like eggs so he got lunch meat and he was the only person I needed to make lunch for anyway. I didn’t really need mine made the night before either.)

9:00 pm– get my self ready for bed. And then call the hospital to find out how the princess’ day went. Nothing really new that I didn’t know. She had a not a totally rough day but I would say a bumpy day.  Then I call my parents and update them about how the day went and find out how their day went. It sounds like they bought winter with them to SC.

10:00 pm– pick one show I missed this week and watch it while not trying to fall asleep.

11:00pm– check on brothers and take for a bathroom run so there hopefully no wet beds in the morning. (Other wise I have more to wash. More work for me.)

11:15ish pm– climb under the covers. Try to go to sleep, but now my brain goes through a list of things that I need to do but haven’t. So I spend the next hour looking to the ceiling telling myself to go to sleep. Eventually I do.

So that’s it. It’s long but each day is long. It’s not how I plan it but it’s how it went. Busy and always going. I like it. Some times it easy to forgot how much work it is to what parents do day in and day out. I just want to say “thank you mom and dad”. The two of you guys do so much for each one of us. Sometimes you just need a break. Hope you are enjoying vacation. Love you.

As I read this over I realized that even though he moved out and doesn’t live at home. I never checked up on my other brother. I should since my parents are away I should at least find out if he has food to eat, then ask how’s work going. It’s late now, I’ll do it first thing in the morning. If I remember.

Below is a picture of the family at “Santa shuffle run” drawn by the youngest. It’s hard to read but in red I wrote under each name what everyone is doing, just in case you couldn’t tell. this is one of the many reasons I love being mom for a day. 

Until Next Time.