Tuesday
Midnight – 5 a.m.: Toss and turn. My 5 and 3-year-olds sleep through the night but now I can’t. What’s up with that?!?
5 a.m. – 6:30 a.m.: Sleep and dream about chocolate.
6:30 a.m. – 6:45 a.m.: Come up with 50+ Gallagher-inspired ways to destroy my husband’s alarm clock.
6:45 a.m. – 7:45 a.m.: Try with all my might to fall back to sleep, telling myself that this extra 1 hour of sleep will keep me energized for the rest of the day, all the while denying that my children are awake and running amok unsupervised downstairs.
7:45 a.m.: Dragged out of bed by screams of “I pooooooooped!” from 3-year-old.
7:45 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.: Breakfasts, clothes, nauseating kids’ television programming, a shower if I’m lucky…the usual eventfully non-eventful morning routine.
10:45 a.m. – 11 a.m.: Road trip to Lowes in order to purchase supplies for backyard awesomeness.
11 a.m. – 11:45 a.m.: Spend 5 minutes loading cart with supplies. Remaining 40 minutes spent dealing with spontaneous tantrum from the 5-year-old. On the 1-5 Scale of Tantrum Intensity, this one was a 4, just shy of 5 simply because she didn’t break anything or hurt innocent bystanders (little sister doesn’t count). During the course of this tantrum, both television and iPad privileges were revoked for the remainder of the day. All of Lowes got to hear how I am “THE MEANEST MOM IN ALL OF THE WORLD.” Yup, that’s me. At least I was having a good hair day.
11:45 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.: Car ride home with multiple pull-overs due to excessive wailing by 5-year-old and my needing to collect myself and stop the bleeding from my eardrums.
12:30 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.: Usual lunch-time routine, accompanied by the shrill wails and screams of a slightly upset toddler.
1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.: Nap time for the 3-year-old. In our household, it is routine for big sister to have Quiet Time while little sister naps, a time when she can normally play with the iPad or whatever else her heart desires so long as it is in her room and it is QUIET. I inform her that I will be napping with her little sister, the iPad will be under my pillow, and that it is up to her to keep herself quietly busy. I shut the door to screams of “BUT WHAT CAN I DO?!? THERE’S NOTHING TO DO!!! I NEED THE IPAD!!! AAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!” I crash into sleep with lingering feelings of guilt that perhaps I’ve gone too far by taking away her precious iPad…
3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.: Tiptoe into the 5-year-old’s room, slightly worried that I’ll find her on the floor in shock or stuck in some iPad-less-induced catatonic state. Instead, I am enthusiastically greeted, showered with multi-media artwork, proudly shown newly-painted nails, given a tour of a redecorated doll house, handed binoculars and instructions on where to look out the window for a new bird’s nest, and given a detailed account of a conversation she had through her open window with a neighbor.
3:45 p.m. and beyond: Pat myself on the back for being THE MEANEST MOM IN ALL OF THE WORLD.
