As a new stay at home mom, I frequently struggle with whether I’m doing too much…or not enough…for my family.
For example, take this morning: I was going to get up early and make homemade cranberry orange muffins and yogurt/fruit smoothies for the kids. Three too many snooze buttons later and breakfast was cold cinnamon raisin bagels with glasses of o.j.
Not enough?
Then, after my son went up to get dressed and my daughter had a second bagel, I proceeded to pack snacks for the kids. Those orange-y crackers with faux fromage (read cheese) inside and a fruit roll-up. Well – actually I packed that for my daughter but my son doesn’t like those crackers so I packed him those weird little breadsticks and the orange-y dipping-sauce-that’s-supposed-to-be-cheese and comes in little individual packages. And a fruit roll-up.
Not enough?
After having been up in his room for a full ten minutes, my son then comes back down with his pajama pants tied around his waist (Not on. Tied.) complaining the whole time that he has no clean underwear in his drawer. So let me get this straight. I collect all the dirty laundry. Sort it. Wash it. Dry it. FOLD it. And leave it to sit in nice, neat piles on the counter in the laundry room waiting for someone to just simply put it away, but no one ever does. And it’s STILL not enough?!
As a side note – my son totally could have walked through the dining room to get his clean underwear out of the laundry room without anyone having been any the wiser. I think he just walked through the kitchen for fun (as a side note to the side note – he only got one pair of underwear instead of bringing up the whole pile so we’ll have a reprise of this scene tomorrow, guaranteed) and to show off what he described as “something Tarzan would wear.” And it was, except for the logos of pro football teams all over the little helmets on the pant legs tied in a knot and hanging down his back. Which didn’t quite cover his bongo-drums. This of course was all designed to elicit an eckkkkghh noise from his sister. (you know eckkkkghh. It’s the noise you might make while hocking a loogie. Except you’re ten and a girl and you need to put all the loathing you feel into it.)
Just a word-to-the-wise at this point: do not watch cooking shows while running on the treadmill after everyone leaves the house for the day. I will now be making chicken fricassee for dinner. But first I have to buy the chicken…and all the fricassee fixin’s. And don’t EVER watch any show where Martha Stewart is doing the cooking. It will make you want to commit full-on mayhem. Martha and I have a love/hate thing going. But she doesn’t know it. And it’s mostly hate on my part. I mean, come on! Who can really be like that?! Says Martha to Matt Lauer, “No, Matt, it’s pronounced Bow-kay Gar-neeee”. Says me to Martha “eckkkkghh!!! I will cage fight you now, Martha!”
But wait! Speaking of committing…I just remembered that I’ve committed to attending a friend’s clothing party starting at 5 tonight (drinky-poos to be had so don’t want to miss it!). So the fam won’t be getting frickin’ Fricassee after all. Franks and beans it is!
Too much??