Mistakes Were Made

T says that I am not capable of telling a short story. I think he may be right. If you’ve got time for a novel, just read on. If you need the short version, skip to the end….

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I woke up at 6:30 this morning, just like I do every other morning. But instead of following my usual routine, I made adjustments to accomplish a few other important things. Unfortunately, that lead to a bit of a stressful morning. But in hindsight, it seems that mistakes were made even before this day began.

Because T works outside the home, I’m in charge of getting Tiny and Buba up and ready in the morning. From 6:30 to roughly 7:30 am, I’m in their room getting them out of their cribs, changing diapers, giving them their cups of milk, reading books, and changing them out of pajamas and into their clothes. Then T comes in and I get about 15 minutes to get myself ready for the day.

So I started my day doing all of those things. And as an added bonus, today I also had time to change the crib sheets. Now normally, once T comes in to read books and play with the kids before heading off to work, I do one or more of these essential things-  shower, get myself dressed and presentable enough for the outside world, make and eat breakfast for myself, and/or make breakfast for the kids. But today I had a pile of crib sheets and sleep sacks that had to get washed. Mostly, it was the sleep sacks that needed to be washed because we would need them for naptime. So, I picked up the pile and headed to the basement to throw the laundry into the washing machine. I made a mental note to self- make sure this all goes into the dryer before leaving the house – and headed back upstairs.

With about 12 minutes of just-me time left, I contemplated making myself breakfast, but then I remembered that there was a small stack of bills in the bedroom that had to get mailed this morning to avoid overdue/late penalties. Now it’s true, I knew these bills needed to go out today last night and probably should have paid them last night instead of addressing Christmas cards while watching TV shows on Hulu (mistake #1), but I thought it would just take a couple of minutes. Wrong. I had not balanced the checkbook in a while, and therefore, was not even sure there was money to cover the checks I would be writing. I had to work my way through a small mountain of debit card receipts to make sure I didn’t also need to fit in a trip to the bank this morning. Once I realized that a trip to the bank would not be necessary, I got to work writing out the checks. Except that there was only one check left in the checkbook. I had known that the last time I paid bills, but decided not to seek out the new stack of checks until next time (possible mistake). It only took a few minutes to locate the new checks, but those were a few minutes that I did not have. I could hear T helping the kids pick up their toys and knew that I had very little time until they were all mine again. I quickly scribbled out the checks and was affixing the stamps just as my kids ran into the kitchen looking for their breakfast, which was not even close to ready.

I warmed up a blueberry pancake in the microwave, slathered on some butter, some syrup, and a few frozen blueberries and announced to Buba and Tiny that breakfast was served. I knew that I now had about 15 minutes before breakfast clean up would begin, and normally this is when I would make and eat my own breakfast if I hadn’t done so already. But today, I decided that I really wanted to finish making the black bean soup I had started making over the weekend, before I realized that key ingredients were missing from our cupboard. I was thinking that I could make the soup while they ate, and then eat my own breakfast after I cleaned them up (mistake #2). The soup took way longer to make than I had expected, to the point that I no longer had time to make myself breakfast before we had to get ready to head to the library for storytime.

I rushed through changing two diapers, putting on two pairs of shoes, and putting on two coats before quickly throwing on some clothes and my own coat and heading out the door (mistake #3- remember those sleep sacks? yep, they didn’t make it into the dryer.) We got to storytime (on time, for a change), listened to stories, sang some songs, and chatted with other moms and babies. Finally things felt on track. Until my stomach growled and I became very aware of the fact that I’d had nothing to eat or drink since late last night. Perhaps we should have headed home immediately, so I could fill my belly, but we needed to get some groceries critical to the dinner I had planned. And it didn’t make sense to go home and eat, only to have to reload Buba and Tiny in the car to go back out for groceries. So we went to the store, quickly got what we needed and headed over to the self checkout lane (mistake #4). Even though I’d done everything perfectly, I was randomly selected for an audit. So we had to wait for the customer service woman (who we love, by the way) to become available so she could double check our order. Ugh!

By the time we got home, got our coats off and and our shoes changed (just like Mr. Rogers, we have indoor shoes and outside shoes), it was time to make lunch. At this point, I was starving, and I should have just grabbed the first item of food I came across. But I’m trying to be careful with my food choices, and there didn’t seem to be anything healthy that was readily available. Plus my kids were at my feet crying, “Hungie! Hungie!” So I tried to put my hunger aside (mistake #5) while I quickly threw some lunch together for them. But my hunger made me cranky and I’ll admit that I snapped a few times at Tiny, who just would not give me any space. Of course, I felt terrible when she finally ran off to tell Buba, “Mama angy.”

Lunch was finally ready, the kids were eating, and I should have grabbed my own lunch, right? If only I had been so smart. But I was now racing the clock to assemble the ingredients in our slow cooker for tonight’s dinner. I thought it would just take a few minutes (mistake #6), and then I’d grab some lunch. Of course, it took the entire time that Tiny and Buba spent eating, and as soon as they were done, it was time for diaper changes, books, and nap. And that was when I realized that the sleep sacks that they ALWAYS sleep in were still wet in the washing machine. Arg! But I knew I had bought some at our twin sale in the fall that could work for one nap and ferociously dug through the closet to find them. They were quite big, but the kids didn’t seem to care (or even notice that they were any different at all).

Once I finally got Tiny and Buba down for their nap, my day got back on track. I felt instantly better after eating some lunch and taking a little nap myself.

Moral of this story: Nothing good comes out of trying to do too much, and a hungry mommy equals a cranky mommy. So never put off eating (or any of the little self care things that make all the difference in the world).

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The short version:

I should have paid bills last night.

I should not have spent my window of time for breakfast making soup.

I should not have ignored my grumbly belly and gone grocery shopping (there should always be a plan b for dinner. always.)

I need to make sure I take care of myself so I have the energy and proper state of mind to take care of my children without snapping at them (so, so sorry Tiny).

Moral of this story: Nothing good comes out of trying to do too much, and a hungry mommy equals a cranky mommy. So never put off eating (or any of the little self care things that make all the difference in the world).