How Do Other People Do It??

Tell me how it works.  I read blog after blog every day, learning about all sorts of moms who seem to do 'everything' yet seem so relaxed about it all.  Even the ones who work part of their week, still find time to make a decent meal, read to the kids and scrapbook their last vacation.  I, on the other hand, find myself running after the 8 ball on a repeated basis, looking for lost socks, finding cures for extremely smelly shoes, making sure all the animals get at least one square meal a day (and I don't mean my kids), and making sure that the car I get into at the grocery store lot is actually my own.  Whew!  

I took a few days off this past week to spend more time at home, and became fascinated with all that I could do if I was home on a regular basis.  I decided I would get to the bottom of the laundry pile first, just to remind myself what color the bottom of the hamper really was.  After 10 loads (I kid you not) I really didn't care what color it was, mostly because I was so winded after going up and down 2 flights of stairs to the laundry room for 2 days.  

I had this great idea to cook with my kids - to make chocolate chip banana bread, one of our new favorites.  I went to their rooms, offered to make it with them, and saw the folded clothes that I had just 'lovingly' washed, dried and folded, sitting on the floor.  Needless to say, that after my rant about said clothes on the floor, I was left alone to cook the banana bread, as "no one wants to cook with a 'mean-ie'".  Uh huh.  

I went out to the deck to tend our newly planted veggie garden, and noticed that the recent rain had overwatered the plants.  Being that some of the planters do not have super-efficient drainage, I emptied them of the extra water, picked off the yellowed foliage and dead-headed where necessary, all while talking that special baby-talk that plants so love (What?? You don't do that?).  Ok.  Then as I walked back in doors, I heard a monster of a thunder clap and would ya believe...a torrent of rain came down.  Just as I thought the sun really hadn't forgotten us.  So it was back out to the deck in another hour to dump the additional water from the slowly draining pots.

I stopped counting the "I have nothing to do"'s from my kids after 100 today.  Seriously.  Summer only began for us on Thursday.  It's Monday, folks.  

Now I sit in the living room with several piles of the last laundry load folded around me.  I ate way too many pieces of chocolate chip banana bread, and I can't remember if I showered today. Or was it yesterday?  Every single part of my home that I cleaned over the past 4 days now needs additional attention.  But my kids are fed and in bed at a decent hour, the dishes are done, we have enough clean underwear to last us through to the first day of school, and I go back to work tomorrow.  Makes me think I'm going on vacation at this point.