August 9, 2006

Hey y'all,
Tonight was the boys' Kindergarten open house where we met their teachers and had a general overview of how to navigate the school year. There are 5 (!) kindergarten classes in Embassy Creek Elementary, and in general I think I am pretty pleased with the 2 teachers the boys got. One of the others seemed a bit grouchy to me (but then again she is a native New Yorker, so it is hard to tell), and one of them, who has a PhD in early child development, insists on being called "Doctor Remaly" (even by her students) which I find utterly PRETENTIOUS!! It is KINDERGARTEN for heaven's sake. Oh well. The other teacher seemed fine, as do the two my boys have. Hopefully it will all go well. This week the boys and I have biked to the school in the mornings to sort of get used to how things will be running in the mornings. The boys will ride their big wheels, and they've done just fine on them. Well, the first morning of our "school practice" was a little rough, and Joseph was in tears twice before we got to school, but the next morning was much, much better. I'm taking Mosey in the back of my bike, which is fine except for that he's getting tall and his legs are too long for the little foot rests in the child carrier, so every time my foot rises on the pedal, my ankles bump into the bottoms of his shoes. This weekend I need to go and get helmets for Brigham and Joseph. I have a child's helmet for Moses, but only adult sized ones for Brigham and Joseph and they really don't fit right, even with their big heads.
I am finding myself a bit busier than I want to be. I am trying to finish a drawing for someone, and I wanted it done by this weekend, but no way will that happen. I also have 2 photo shoots this weekend and I'm also trying to create the boys' birthday party invitations (took the pictures for those today, but haven't started at all making the invitation). I know I should just go to the dollar store and buy some cheapo invites, but that's just not me I guess... They will be really cute and I'll be sure to attach a copy when I get them finished. To add to this, Ben's work laptop broke down so he had to use my computer all day today, and even if he hadn't had to use it, the boys have been quite demanding so I probably wouldnt' have had any time to work on stuff anyway. I think all the kids and I are ready for school to start. We're all frankly a little sick of each other. At one point today all 3 boys had a timeout at the same time. And I also heard for the first time (although I'm sure not the last), "You're a BAD mom!! You're going to jail!!" I actually laughed when I heard that, although the offender got a swat on the bum for it.

Sometimes motherhood can be exhausting in the strangest ways. Physically, of course, when you're going all day with rarely a moment to sit down. But also, sometimes I just get a little tired being at the beck and call of everyone all the time. Or just tired of the fact that I'm *expected* to be at their beck and call. It is frustrating because the things I'm talking about are not bad, and not really all that unreasonable, so I feel really bad putting them off or saying no, but on the other hand, I just get really tired. For example, right after lunch today Brigham wanted me to drill a hole in this plastic pipe so he could connect it to some sculpture he's making. Joseph brought a piece of wood over to me and wanted me to screw it into this other wood thing he's making. Both boys want me to move the fort from the exercise room to the family room. Mosey has to go potty every 20 minutes it seems (he's been so good about telling me when he needs to go, but he's not tall enough to stand up to the toilet yet, so I've been sitting him backwards on it and consequently he needs me to get him up and down), and all I really want to do is have a moment to fold the 3 loads of laundry waiting for me. I love all the projects my boys do, they are creative and a good use of *their* time, but it also just seems to take up all of *my* time and it is frustrating. And then I feel totally guilty because after all I am a mother, so why do I even have a concept or expectation of "my time" anyway?
All this was compounded by the fact that my dear friend Melissa is in the hospital with some weird and scary complications of persistent migraines, so I'm trying to cook dinner for her children and have all of that done and delivered, plus my kids fed, cleaned up and changed, all by 6 PM so we can make it to Kindergarten orientation. Too many things in one day. Well, I would have even had time for all of that except for that major meltdown of the children which resulted in 3 timeouts and me getting fed up enough to put them all in the van and go for a drive and then a trip to the park, which ate up almost 2 hours of my afternoon. And now it is 10:30 and I haven't accomplished a single thing on my to do list for the night (except the dishes), and I'm just a bit irked. I'm afraid Ben sort of bore the brunt of that when he was called at the last minute (8 PM right when any good husband SHOULD be helping his wife get the kids to bed, RIGHT??) to do a bunch of stuff for our ward's hurricane calling tree thing, and so he was out of commission for more than 2 hours while I wrangled with kids getting them ready for bed, reading stories, brushing teeth, etc. Yeah, I got really mad and sort of yelled at Ben to call back Brother Hathaway and tell him he just can't do it tonight and can he please reschedule for next week. But Ben, the dutiful priesthood holder didn't do that and so I ended up doing the night routine on my own. I really don't mind getting the kids in bed by myself, but it gets complicated with Mosey. We read books on Brigham's bed (a double bed) and when all 3 boys try to crowd into the bed to read the book, it inevitably ends up with the boys fighting over who is in who's spot, and who can see and who can't, and Mosey really is not able to pay attention long enough for the boys' books and ends up asking me every 2 seconds (literally), "What's that mom?" and pointing to something on the page, or else saying, "Look at that letter mom!" (which requires my response, "Yes, that's a letter, Mosey"), making it nearly impossible to actually read the story with any intelligible continuity!! Whew!! When I finally got Brigham and Joseph down, I put Mosey in our room where Ben was working on ward hurricane stuff, but of course he can't really successfully keep Mosey in there when Mosey knows I'm downstairs, and sure enough 30 seconds later I hear the door squeak open upstairs and down he comes putting an end to any hopes of me actually accomplishing anything until Ben finished, which wasn't until like 10:15 PM.
Anyway. Sorry for that majorly long whine session. Just needed to get that out of my system I guess.
Oh, I am also working on a "day in the life" project of my own. Yesterday from the time we woke up until bedtime, I took a bunch of pictures of just the every day moments of life in the Turner household at this stage of our lives. It was really fun, but now I have 150 pictures to edit and sort through and combine into a little book like thing that I'm envisioning. I really want to do this every year or maybe a couple of times a year to document every day life at various stages of my kids' lives. I figured I better do it quick to capture the life of my 3 little rascals while they are still in the complete freedom and irresponsibility of pre-school children. So anyway, I have that project on the back of my mind as well and I don't like to put off these sorts of projects too long because then projects start piling up and I get really stressed out.
So yeah, I am pretty aware that most of the stuff making me busy is self-imposed, but it still seems like to me that I should have to right to pursue some of these things, EVEN THOUGH I am primarily a wife and mother. Am I totally irrational and unrealistic to think that? Probably.
Ok, enough whining for tonight.