HOW I (DON'T), (CAN'T), (WON'T) DO IT ALL......

When I tell people that I home school four kids I always get the same look from others. I am sure other home school parents or SAHM's can relate to this. The person looks at me and their eyes get a little wider and they stare at me as if I am a magical flying unicorn. "Oooooh how nice. I could NEVER do that! You must be so organized and patient". To that, I always just smile and nod. The truth is, I don't "do it all". If the sweet lady who I was having this conversation with stopped looking at me and paid attention to my 11 year old's mismatched shoes or the fact that he may or may not have fuzzy stuff on his teeth from not brushing them this morning, then she might  grasp how silly of a notion that is. Motherhood, in all it's glory, is a messy business. People like myself, with several children, have to learn to lower our expectations. We have to learn to embrace noise and chaos and messiness. If we don't, we might just go nuts.

Let's take cleaning, for instance. I clean under pressure. I do not do good work unless there is some kind of incentive for me to mop or dust. I think most of my mommy friends can relate to this: I look around my home. It's a mish mosh of toys and clothes strewn about. I call a friend and ask them to come over in two hours for a "playdate" which is code for "mommy needs grown up conversation"(ok, I need time in there to chug a coffee!)= CLEAN, sparkling house!!!(forget that there's clothes thrown under the bed. One must learn to lower her expectations about these types of things). The best part about this is, we all say, as our friend is walking in the door "oh, excuse the mess" as if this is the dirty version of our home. The truth is, there's still a pile of laundry taller than me in the laundry room. Why do you think they put doors in a house? Why, it's to hide some of our mess, of course!

Now let's discuss exercise. I confess, I used to be a gym rat! I would go and drop my kids off at school and work out for two hours, maybe even more. You could have easily ,mistaken my ass for a 20 year olds ass. It was pretty nice, I must admit. Then, I began home schooling and had my fourth child. Now, exercise goes something like this:
9pm- put kids and baby to sleep.
9:30- get kids school work ready for the next day.
9:45pm-12am- end up on Pinterest looking for cool science experiments to do with the kids, then chat with friends via FB because I am starved for adult conversation.
12:30am- roll into bed, being sure to be extra quiet so as not to wake up the sleeping baby.
12:31am- promptly fall asleep
12:35am- massive fail!!! Baby hears my snoring(there, I said it, I snore!) and begins to cry. I pick him up and bring him into bed to nurse.
1:15am- baby wakes up due to teething and will only sleep if rocked and nursed.
1:45am- put baby down to sleep and crawl back into bed "vewy, vewy quwietwy"( that's my impression of the looney tunes character who likes to hunt "wabbits")
4:30am- baby wakes up to nurse and promptly poops. I must physically wake up to change the baby and then more rocking back to sleep.
5am- baby is sound asleep and I am wide awake so I get up.
5:30am- I go for a walk to get in my exercise while my two eldest sons wake up and begin fighting. They call me repeatedly to break up their arguments over Pokemon cards. I hear actual violence so I rush home after 10 minutes.
I might have actually worked out for a total of 15 minutes! My butt sure as heck does not look like a 20 year olds anymore! Now, when I see people posting on FB that they are working out(something I used to do a lot), I become irritated and decide that they must be vain!

The thing is, I realize that I can't do it all. My kids and I might take off a day of home schooling just to clean our house once in a while.. We might eat oatmeal for dinner. If we're lucky, we might all take showers a few times a week. My kids may or may not wear their clothes to bed then get up and go to home school coop. The dust bunnies in my home may actually begin mating to make a "dust bunny family". Lastly, I may finally end up going for a walk but, I most likely will be noshing on a doughnut while I'm doing it! I have come to realize and accept that life IS messy. For those of you that have a super clean house and kids who are wearing matching clothes, I may just look at you like you are a magical flying unicorn next time I see you...