Thursday, April 30, 2015

Family

There are some days I go to bed so exhausted, worn out and emotionally drained.  These are usually the same nights I wake up multiple times with the kids.  Brynlee crying, Ashlee needing to go potty, Ethan not able to breath or Katelee having a bad dream.  I usually wake up the next morning feeling exactly the same exhaustion as I did when I laid down.  I get myself ready for the day, squeeze in a bit of scripture study and then wake each child up and help in various ways to get them ready for the day.  We eat, do hair, sometimes argue, get lunches in backpacks and more and head out the door by 7:10am.  I drop the two oldest off at a friends house who will take them to school with her kids.  Then it's off to my mom's house to drop the younger girls off for the day and then to work.  By the time I get to work I have already been going for at least 3 hours.

No worries, only 9 more work hours left.

I leave the office between 4:30 and a little after 5, head over to my mom's house to get the two youngest and then head home where Chris, Katelee and Ethan will be working on homework.  We decide what is for dinner, because I can never quite seem to plan ahead that far, and then maybe hang out a bit if we have time before it's bedtime.  On Monday's we do some kind of activity or lesson for Family Home Evening, On Tuesdays Ethan has scouts and Chris has church meetings, Wednesdays I have YW Mutual, Thursdays I have been practicing for an upcoming Shooting event and Saturday nights Chris and I play on a coed softball league.  Not to mention baseball games now that Ethan is playing again.  Of course there are always the random school things going on as well that we have to squeeze in wherever we can.

Chris and I often reflect on our life years ago.  "What were we doing 8 years ago?  6 years ago?  What were we doing when Katelee was just a babe?"  It's funny how when we reflect on the past, we realize how easy we had it.  How easy it was to come home from a long day at work and just veg on the couch, get in our PJs at 7pm and sleep ALL the way THROUGH the night!?!?  When Ethan was a baby he would go to sleep by 7:30 or earlier, what did we do after that?  Life was so slow, no school activities, no sports and no other kids to worry about.  Then we look around the house, every night after the kids are finally in bed we go back downstairs and straighten up.  We put shoes away, toys, random papers and backpacks.  We make lunches and get the bottles ready for the next day.  If we are lucky we run the vacuum or clean something, very lightly.  When we were first married we cleaned the apartment every week, I think it was on a Wednesday night.  Now we clean whenever we have a few spare minutes because there is no set night or day that works.  We use to do laundry every week and now we do laundry every night almost, just to keep up with our clothes and the kids'.  Oh how I loath laundry.  I don't so much mind getting it in the washer or the dryer, more the handing and putting it away.  Folding, I'm even ok with that...  But the putting it away kills me for some reason.  (probably because by the putting away time it's after my bedtime and I just want to climb into bed.)


Seems like this post is my complaining about all the work that has evolved since that wonderful day, 10 years ago, in May when Chris and I committed to marriage for Time and ALL Eternity!  I could have never known life would be like it is today, you don't know any of that until you actually experience it!  But this post is not to complain or want for sympathy it's simply to say how grateful I am for my family!  How is it that I can be grateful to do laundry almost every night?  Because doing that laundry means I have FOUR healthy, ACTIVE, beautiful, unique and perfect kids that call me Mom!  I have a husband that loves me and is right there every night helping out with all the chores and more.  We have really become a "TEAM" that can't be beaten.  It's like a tag team, but with no one tagging out.  Each working and fighting for the same goal.  All of the above has simply become life.  Many times I have coworkers that ask how I manage it all?  How do I have time for everything that happens?  I simply say, "It just works out, it is just my life!"  There is no magic box that gives me more hours in each day than everyone else gets.  There are things we simply can't do and those things just don't get done.  There are activities that I would LOVE to participate in that just aren't an important thing in the real scheme of things.  There are MANY things I wish I could do better that one day I will be able to get better at.  I just have to accept the fact that sometimes I'm not the best mother that everyone thinks I am, but I also have to accept that when my kids tell me I'm the best, they really mean it! 



My Heavenly Father knows what kind of a mother and wife I can be and he gave me four wonderful kids and a husband that could manage with that kind of mother and wife!  Oh yes, my potential in His eyes is far greater than where I am now, but as long as I keep trying and working to improve I think I'm right on track with him!  My kids don't have the kind of mom that picks them up from school everyday, that plays with them whenever they ask, that finds creative ways to study spelling, that doesn't fight with them over getting things done, or one that doesn't require them to try their absolute best no matter if they fail or not.  But the kind of mom my kids do has is a mom that expects a little too much from them at their current ages, that isn't afraid to cry in front of them, that doesn't hide my flaws, that might let them get away with a little too much, that doesn't get too concerned over a little cough, wheeze or sniffle, that will laugh when they do something naughty after having a serious talk about why they were in the wrong and a mom that embarrasses them constantly.
    
     
Every time I reflect back on my life prior to the kids and Chris there is a sense of sadness, not having the joy I have now with them in my life!
Yes life was much simpler and less complicated 10 years ago...  But it was also lacking so significantly that I couldn't even have imagined!