Tomorrow is Long Hair Proud Daddy's birthday, and I have no idea what we will be doing. My main goal right now is to make something fudgy, and help the girls make/buy/decorate presents for him.
First thing this morning I tried really hard to fold and put away these 3 loads of laundry that are in my dining room. Well, I got the first one completely done, and the second one barely started. Disclaimer here: please note that I say that these are the 3 loads of clean laundry in the dining room, and does not include the 2 in the girls bedroom, and the 3 (?) in my bedroom. Now don't you feel better?
The more valuable things I did today included helping Dancer Girl and Little Sister with drawing, coloring, and gluing Cheerios onto paper. I took time out from almost blogging to completely detangle and style (complete with curlers) one of those doll-head thingies. I let myself be subjected to the whole story line. Dancer Girl asked me about colors to paint her hair, & how to apply the make-up. I was fully engaged in the activity. I surprised myself. Another time today we sat and worked puzzles, lots of them.
There are usually times each day when I find myself saying, "Not now", or "No way" or "Maybe Later". "Maybe Later", that is apparently one of my favorites. But not today. Today I was there with my girls. Forget the laundry. And, I was successful in not letting my children watch non-stop television all morning. At one point, I actually turned on the radio to the local classical station, and we listened to Mozart(I felt it was time they knew what a radio was-haha).
The best part is that I wasn't trying to do anything wonderful or great, I was just trying to accomplish the normal. Now I know I am not Mr. Excitement like Daddy is, and I am usually the first one to lose patience and want to run away (at least for 15 minutes). Yes, even now as I type this, it is later in the day, & I find myself taking away blocks because "we don't throw our toys." I find myself saying, "we don't hit our sister with the guitar, go see if she is ok and tell her you are sorry."
I have no idea what's for dinner, probably a highly processed canned product--anyone for Spaghettios? And, we will probably be glued to the television....6:30 pm Wheel of Fortune, 7-8 pm 7th Heaven (and it better not be another re-run tonite), and then hopefully books and bedtime, and no melt-downs. And, I am almost out of pull-ups. I will have to scrounge around to see how many I have left-- one would be the worst case scenario but not impossible to deal with, and three would be great. Well, it is another opportunity to be creative, and be thankful I have a drawer-ful of thick cotton training pants (well, actually I will probably look in the drawer and find only plastic pants, and have to dig around in laundry baskets, and hope for some clean baby underwear).
Oh well. The point was that I am feeling pretty good about today. And I have on clean clothes, and I had a bubble bath (never mind that Little Sister stood at the side of the tub almost the whole time, throwing bubbles into the air and onto my gardening magazine)....
7 comments:
Sounds like you had a wonderful memory making day with the girls.
Never put off your kids because one day you will wake up and they will be all grown up.
You are right to spend as much time with them now, when it counts. Never say tomorrow, because sometimes tomorrow never comes.
At least you got to take a bubblebath by yourself even if the little one was playing with the bubbles.
Sounds like you have a Cheerio-dandy day.
Wish hubby a happy birthday from us.
That sounds almost comical and funny especially the coloring, and gluing Cheerios onto the world as a whole. Was that Long Hair Proud Daddy's hair that was being plastered with glue?
No, not daddy's hair...it was a rainbow. There was a picture of our house, your house, & a friend's house on the flip side full of happy people going back & forth to each other's homes, complete with kitties. The girls were excited when they found out you were coming on Thursday.
I'm glad you had a day where you got to spend plenty of time with your girls.
I can relate to the 'maybe later's...often there are jobs that need to be done (or we will have no food, or no clean clothes, etc!), but sometimes I just don't want to do puzzles or read books because I desperately want a second to myself! And like you, I also have to fight the temptation to let my kids watch too much TV. On days when I am sick, or have an awful lot to do, or am really fed up, I give in and my kids watch too much. I suspect that's not so unusual!
Happy Birthday to the old man. :)
thanks everyone for sweet comments..jellyhead, yes, i totally agree with you. I keep reminding myself what a friend kept telling me, "Give yourself a break. You expect too much of yourself."
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