Goodbye!

The end of summer!   
 
So many mourn the passing, carefree days, but I am here to tell you there is a silent minority cheering for summer's exit.  And it's me. 
 
I can't take another day of 3-a-day gushing milk spills on the kitchen table.  I don't want to step on another spilled goldfish cracker on my living room floor.  I've grown weary of hanging towel after towel on the deck.  I'm fresh out of ideas for patiently guiding siblings away from boxing matches in the car.
 
The summer days have been long, and unscheduled.  Towards the end here, they have loomed before me like ominous storms.
 
A couple weeks ago, a woman with two kids commented to me that it sure gets easier when they're older.  I took a look at my baby, toddling through the waiting room at swim lessons with snot dribbling down his nose and mixing with drool and slipping down his chin.   He was giddily trying to grab up everything in sight that didn't belong to us, and I bit my tongue from saying out loud:  I've got a long time yet before that comes.
 
But still:  deep breath.  Next week, with fresh number twos and Crayolas and minds, three of my kids will march into a productive, sibling-free zone.  They will read and do math and stay away from video games without me reminding them all day long.  They will prosper!   They will flourish!  They will joyfully take up the task of learning!
 
Or maybe it's me that will prosper and flourish.  And breathe. 
 
It's the end of summer!

The Morning Chaos

I am so much more of a perfectionist than I realized.

Every day, I wish the day could start with a kid-free workout and a cup of coffee before the chaos ensues.  I haven’t yet worked up to the 5AM wake-up call that would require for me. 

So, it isn’t that. 

Instead, today began around 6 when my eyes popped open with a bit of sunlight streaming in through the bedroom curtains.  I grabbed a shower, knowing my exercise would be on hold because we have a morning playdate scheduled.  I heard Frankie cry out for a moment, but I ignored him as I ran down the stairs and pulled out of the driveway to grab coffee for John and me. 

I feel a constant pull between perfection and reality.  I dream of a family in which no boys talk about poop or penises.  A family where people pretty much always say please or thanks.  A family where I ask for help, and the answer is, “Sure, happy to lend a hand!”  Or at least yes.

Don’t get me wrong:  my kids aren’t horrible.  There are lots of pleases and thank yous, and lots of helping hands.  Just this morning, Jimmy unloaded the dishwasher and Lucy played nicely with Frank, keeping him out of trouble.  But in between those nice moments, there are children who scream just to experiment with how screaming can sound.  There is a baby grabbing all my recycling from the container with the broken lid.  There is laundry coming from every orifice of the home, and a particularly demanding child who yells in my face in a way that is embarrassing and infuriating.  I am trying to keep my cool, but just being around this much action is giving me a bit of a nervous tick.

Parenting is so indescribably hard.

I’m having one of those days when I wonder if I am really cut out for this.  Can I even get it done?  It seems like I’m slipping.   Beyond wondering if I can ever leave the house with it being in reasonable order, I wonder if I can raise these kids into relatively competent adults. 

Logically, I know other homes are going through the same struggles.  But it feels so lonely and isolating to be here as the primary caregiver.  I feel unqualified; my own weaknesses glaringly revealed when a child has a short temper that mimics my own.

It is a hard morning.  But there is sun outside and I suppose we will get through it. 

How many days until school starts?