EXHAUSTED

[jennickels]

Ugh.  I hate when I slack off for a couple days than try and catch up in one.  You think I would learn by now.  But, alas, I have not.

My back and feet are still killing me and I've mostly sat on my butt since 9pm.  It's currently 1:30am here and I'm still up for some crazy reason.  Luckily there will be a houseful of girls to take care of the baby in the morning.  It's amazing how much 10-12 year olds like to care for babies.

So I got a lot of the hard stuff on my LIST done.  It wore me out but I was determined to cross out the big stuff.  I cleaned the kitchen (several times thanks to having to cook and bake and deal with raw meat...blah).  Then I tackled the yard.  Meagan was whining and throwing a fit over wanting her party tonight and wanting to camp out in the back yard.  But before I could set up the tent I had to cut the grass.  But I couldn't just cut the back yard (like my husband would have done... actually he wouldn't have cut any grass and just put the tent up).  So I started in the front yard.  Then I trimmed all the bushes.  We have way too many bushes and they are just so random.  But they were horribly overgrown and needed pruning.  With hand shears.  My hands hurt, too.  Then I cut the backyard.  Our yard doesn't look real big but it sure feels like it when you're mowing

By the time I finished with the yard work three hours had gone by and Meagan was getting antsy.  She sneaked off to watch TV with her friends instead of helping me.  Brenna started to help but picking up thorny trimmings wasn't her idea of a good time so she quiet after one box full (we dump them in the brambles behind our yard since we can't afford to add yard waste pick-up to our already outrageous trash bill).  The trimmings are still all over the yard so I'll have to pick them up in the morning.

Then I set the tent up with help from Meagan's friend Jamie.  Not sure how we managed but we got it up.  The thing is huge and sleeps 10 adults comfortably.  The one time we all used it we had a queen mattress on one side and the 4 kids slept on the other side and then there's a huge room right in the middle.  You can fit a queen mattress in each section with room to walk around them.

Somewhere in between all that I managed to eat lunch, bake a cake, make dinner and deal with a fussy Jack.

Now I have 4 girls camped out in my back yard (my older two and their two friends).  Nora was going to sleep in the tent but she was falling asleep while they were watching a movie so I made her bring her stuff back inside.  She's asleep on the living room floor, lol.  Owen is in his room.

I also got some writing in once the girls got settled out in the tent.  I did two challenges for fictionland.  One was to write for 10 minutes and post whatever we wrote (times two).  I used writeordie.com and got the beginnings of two stories--one original and one Firefly fic.  The other challenge was to write a story that was exactly 333 words long.  Grrr.  I had to do some fudging and editing and I'm still not satisfied with the ending but I'm too tired to deal with it any more.  I posted it at the challenge but I might fiddle with it some more before I post it to my journal.  In the morning.

Tomorrow I'm doing nothing.  I'm going to be so freaking tired.  My husband has to be up in like an hour or so to go to work.  I'll be on my own with the kids until 7pm tomorrow night.  Jack seems to be coming down with a little cold (poor guy).  Nora's coughing, too (probably where Jack got it from).  Owen is grounded because he left his boundaries while hanging out with his buddy.  I'm pretty free-range when it comes to my kids but they still aren't allowed to roam where ever they want, especially without telling me where they are going.  Now he's in trouble so he'll be driving me nuts.  Maybe I'll put him to work cleaning up the bush clippings. 

Oh and there's still that houseful of girls.  Poor Owen.  It will be me, Owen, Jack and 5 girls.  Oy.

Oh yeah, forgot my brother said he might come up tomorrow.  That means I can't even veg out the whole day because I have to cook and straighten up before he gets here.  Ugh.

I'm hoping to finish typing up two stories I have finished and finish the two I started for the 10 minute challenge.  I doubt I get to it all if my brother shows up.

I need to go to bed.  I can't stop yawning now.  I hate to go now and wake my husband up an hour before he has to get up but I'm so freaking tired.

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Moms are WIN.

I am convinced that they hold the strong force binding the universe together.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Thanks.
And I'm not even one of those moms that does everything for their kids and has them involved in every little thing so she becomes nothing more than a chauffeur shuttling little precious around town.

[and, yeah, I'm still up--2:15am!--I'm so going to pay for this later today]

[stardust-20.livejournal.com]

I swear we have the hardest job in the world, taking care of kids. Especially being a stay at home mom. I know I do pretty much everything around the house since my husband has 2 jobs to pay for everything and it's exhausting! My kids are in a few activities (thankfully all done for summer now) but not nearly so busy as other kids I know. It's crazy.

We have no girls in our house. It's a very different place with three boys, especially when they have friends over. I feel swamped by testosterone! :)

Good luck today - i hope you're not too exhausted after yesterday and getting no sleep!

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I think the new generation of moms makes staying home a lot harder than it has to be by thinking they have to do EVERYTHING for everyone (be a maid and servant). Back in the 50s, that everyone holds up as the pinnacle of staying at home, kids were expected to pull their weight. Husband's too. They didn't just sit around and do nothing after they were done working. Well, maybe during the week but on weekends they were up doing yard work, coaching little league, doing stuff with the kids. My dad grew up in the 50s and both his parents worked. He had tons of chores and so did his dad. His parents took turns doing laundry and ironing and yard work. He had more chores at 6 than most kids have at 12-13 today.

Then there's the activities. The idea that a kid can't be happy unless they are signed up to do something every free moment of the day. I don't get it. My friend has her kids (almost 11 and 4) involved in EVERYTHING. There is never a day/moment that they aren't running somewhere or doing some class or sitting around waiting for a class to end. And if it isn't a class for the kids they are waiting for her to do something. She's involved in a ton of stuff. I get exhausted just reading about their days and, to me, it doesn't sound fun at all. It sounds like a ton of rushing around then sitting and being bored then more rushing, eating fast food and kids falling asleep in the car at 11pm on a school night from sheer exhaustion.

My kids aren't involved with anything mostly because we can't afford it and I have no car so I can't get them to activities. But even with a car it isn't as simple as "hop in and go" with 5 kids. I'd rather they spend their time playing and being kids and they don't seem to be suffering from their lack of activities (they were involved some when we were in Chicago but it got to be too much for me walking them to the school every night for something then rushing around trying to make dinner before bedtime).

I actually feel the same swamped feeling when the house is full of girls. I just don't "get" girls and feel much more comfortable around boys. Me, hubby and Owen were so desperate to have another boy when I was pregnant last time, lol. Thankfully we got Jack to balance things out a little. Owen was starting to feel more than a little overwhelmed with all the girls.

Add their friends in to the mix and I feel the same way. It gets crazy in the house--they are so loud and squealy. For Brenna's birthday there were 4 other girls here. Oy.

[stardust-20.livejournal.com]

I think you're right to an extent, but I don't think every family was like your husbands. I know I grew up in the seventies and my mom was a stay-at home-mom. My dad did nothing around the house. Literally NOTHING. We did it all. I think my husband's family was the same way, although his mom did have to go out to work eventually to pay for 3 kids' stuff and so they ended up with lots more chores than I did. Still, my husband is allergic to the kitchen and wouldn't know the washer and dryer if they bit him. I'm working on teaching my boys differently - I want them to know how to cook, clean and do laundry. This generation is much more likely to be living alone for many years before getting married (there are always exceptions, like yourself and like my husband who never lived alone before marrying me) and they need to know how to take care of themselves.

My kids each do one sport and one music-related activity. I consider that a must. But beyond that, nothing that takes up much time. My eldest participates in stuff at school like the photography club and math club but that's at lunch. They definitely need time for play and homework (and so many kids who are super organized time-wise don't do homework) and time to enjoy each other as a family. That's a more important gift to give them than all the lessons in the world.

Are you planning on more kids? (sorry to be nosy, just you don't see many people with 5 kids now unless they're very orthodox catholic and don't believe in birth control) Most families have only 2 or 3.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I think maybe there was some difference between suburban and city families. My dad was raised in a neighborhood of Chicago where the people were the working poor. It started as a neighborhood for the workers of Swift Packing Plant at the Stock Yards (it was called Back of the Yards). It's always been a poor working class neighborhood where people worked hard and still struggled to get by.

When he was a kid his dad worked for the railroad and his mom worked at the packing plants. Most of his friends had 2 working parents. Stay at home moms were rare in the neighborhood and most of his friends were taken care of by grandparents or older family members while their parents worked.

I know each generation since the baby boomers has grown more indulged and entitled. I went to college in the mid 90s and was shocked at how many kids didn't know how to do anything for themselves. I have to admit my parents were a bit too over-indulgent with me and my brother. We didn't do chores and got allowance for just existing. We got just about anything we ever asked for including expensive items even if it meant my dad went into debt to get it. All because he wanted to give us "more" than he had. We (or at least I) did learn how to do chores and stuff, we just had no responsibilities.

But at least when I got to college I knew how to take care of myself. I could cook (and regularly phoned my mom for recipes she had cooked my whole life and advice on how to make them), clean and knew how to do laundry.

I can't count how many times I'd be in the laundry room in the dorms and had people ask me how to load a washer, how much soap to put in, how to work the dryer. If I had been more industrious I could have made some money off of them, lol.

I remember vowing my kids would NEVER be that way. So far I have most chores covered and I taught my older 2 to do laundry when they were 7 and 9 (I learned at 8). I'm kind of slacking on the cooking thing. My oldest is 11 and can't cook. I'm leery about showing her more because the controls are on the back of the stove and she's really short. She has to stand on a stool to reach. But they've known how to use a toaster and microwave since they were 4 and now know how to use the Foreman grill.

I'd probably have them in activities if they could walk themselves there. I refuse to spend my days driving people around. They take the bus to and from school. They get home around 4pm, dinner is at 5pm and bedtime is 8pm. There really isn't any time for after school stuff. They also have chores to do, homework and they want to go out and play. They really aren't interested in activities.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

"Are you planning on more kids? (sorry to be nosy, just you don't see many people with 5 kids now unless they're very orthodox catholic and don't believe in birth control) Most families have only 2 or 3. "

We're done. I always wanted 6 kids, my husband only wanted 1 or 2 when we got together. We agreed on 3 and then those 3 came the first 3 years we were married. So we decided to have a 4th when we moved out of my dad's house the first time. Then I got pregnant and miscarried when she was 3 and that opened up the idea of having a 5th kid.

We weren't really planning it (I really suck at taking birth control, lol) but along came Jack. I had my tubes tied after he was born.

They were all c-sections so the risk to me was increasing with each kid otherwise we probably would have had one more.