Today Is The Day...

I knew it was coming... I could feel it starting to build... every woman knows when she is about to hit her wall and her head will explode.

That happened for me this morning. I woke up blissfully happy... which only lasted for about 30 seconds before a child came in with a wet dog (I have never discovered just why the dog was wet and she isn't talking so I am not asking) to start begging for breakfast. I convinced said child that she was capable of pulling a frozen waffle out of the freezer and putting it in a toaster. This child... child #3 has a habit of asking the same question over and over until my head explodes and I send her to her room for 18 years. Eventually I won this dance with the fruit of my loins and she headed off to make herself a waffle while I jumped in the shower.

When I emerged, I found the kitchen in complete and utter chaos. Apparently I overestimated my child's ability to put a frozen waffle in a toaster. I don't know what she was doing with the blender, but it was out on the counter with the bicycle tire pump next to it. I knew that was a bad omen for my day.

Drawers were open, cabinets were ajar, the refrigerator was cooling the house and somehow she had turned on the dishwasher... which was empty. While she waited for her breakfast she obviously decided to take part in her favorite past time which is cutting little pieces of paper in tinier pieces of paper and gluing them on yet tinier pieces of paper. So not only were there little bits of paper and glue dollops all over the counter, floor, table and dog, but she had tipped over the syrup and it has dribbled out onto the counter, down the cabinet and pooled in a nice little sugar inducing coma puddle for the dog to lick up.

I let out a long sigh and started cleaning up. It was all my fault really-I was the one to say yes to sex with my husband.

While I was trying to stay calm, my oldest came up to inform me that she needed to get to her riding lesson. I looked outside to see that it had snowed the night before and the roads had not been cleared yet. I was about to say "I am not going out in this" when she cut me off at the pass and with a voice that only a mother could produce, she said "Mother!" and somehow she was able to make me feel instantly guilty for not putting my life in danger by driving in the weather. I completely blame my husband for this and the fact that he is deployed and not here to run interference in times like these. I am outnumbered and the peasants are finally starting to realize that. I am doomed.

"FINE" I yell. I was mad that I had been bamboozled by these kids. So I did what any other mother would do in this situation-I start yelling out commands.

"HOPE! GO SHOVEL"
"EMMA! GO MAKE YOUR BED AND CLEAN YOUR ROOM"
"AARON! GO HELP HOPE SHOVEL"
"AND WHEN YOU ARE ALL DONE--WE ARE CLEANING THE BASEMENT, THE BATHROOMS, YOUR BEDROOMS, AND WASHING THE KITCHEN FLOOR!"

This last command sent them in a tailspin of whining. Clean the basement? The basement that is such a mess that I won't even go down there or I will start to hyperventilate due to my aversion to clutter and chaos? Clean the bathrooms? You mean those rooms where my children go into-splash water all over the walls and ceiling and leave a pit? Clean their bedrooms? You mean the areas that have been roped off with police tape? Wash the kitchen floor? You mean the floor that the dog licks throughout the day... every day?

Yes...for the love of all things clean, I will have a tidy house today.

Then, the straw that broke the camels back happened. Hope's trainer called and cancelled her lesson because of the snow and the fact that is would be dangerous to head out on the dirt roads to the barn (which was my point earlier, but what the hell do I know? I am just the hired help around here.) and so I opened the door and yelled out to Hope that her lesson was changed to tomorrow.

She looked at me and said "Can we stop shoveling then?"

I do not remember what happened next, but I woke up with a sparkling clean house and well behaved children. They are even saying "yes Ma'am" to me.

I wish I knew what happened in those few hours after I blacked out. Whatever it was-it worked. I am fully aware that I may be the topic of my children's journal entries this week... but I don't care. My house is clean and I am blissfully happy again. Ain't motherhood grand?


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