Thursday, July 28, 2011

Life . . . on a hamster wheel . . . interrupted

That is now how I describe “never at home” motherhood.  Yeah, that's right, I’ve decided that the title “stay at home” mom is bulls#*! so I’m now going to refer to my station as “never at home” mom as opposed to stay at home mom.
This revelation came as a result of this week’s family fun – summer camp.  Of course, my kids can’t all go to the same camp, they have to go to three different camps in three different locations at three completely different times.
Here’s what I learned about the desperate need to clone myself, the never ending monotonous tasks, and the fact I have only myself to blame for having created mini me’s that are as active as I am:
1)      When planning the summer camp schedule, make sure that the amount of time between drop off and pick up is at least 5 hours and for crying out loud, if you have three children and you decide it’s a brilliant idea to encourage their individuality, choose camps where the drop offs AND pick ups are geographically close and are only ½ hour apart.  This nonsense of one child picked up at noon and the other at 3pm and the other at 5pm is complete insanity.  I barely had time to pee, to say nothing of trying to answer e-mails and take care of some of my own business, before I had to leave the house again and pick up the next kid.

2)      As Albert Einstein said – Insanity = doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  So why is it that mom’s continue to do the dishes, make lunches, do the laundry, clean up children’s rooms, make the bed, bathe the children and expect that these things will end at some point, or at the children will magically start to do these things on their own.  I keep hoping that if I do these tasks better than the last time that it will BE the last time I will do them.  What am I doing wrong?!  J  Holy crap, I never realized that all those tasks I gave to my nannies were so monotonous . . . they NEVER go away.  This is why I need family fun.  To make the ordinary and mundane not so ordinary! 

3)      When you allow your children to watch television at the end of their camp filled day, be sure you have rehearsed your excuse when your husband scolds the children for watching TV and they throw you under the bus by saying “but mommy told us we could”.  Although he didn’t say it, I’m certain my husband was thinking “what do they do all day?  They’re here and she lets the children watch TV all day”.  He even pulled out the old “when I was your age I played outside until I was called in to dinner.”  Lucky for me I had thought this one through and made the very reasoned (this is where my lawyer training comes in) argument that the children had been working very hard all day long at their summer camps.  Let’s not kid ourselves.  Mommy just needed an hour and ½ of uninterrupted time to take care of a few things and she knew the only way they were not going to go all Tasmanian Devil on my house or be in my ear with "mommmy, mommy, mommy" was to put them in front of iCarly!
Moral for today – family fun is exhausting, even when others are entertaining your kids all day.  No wonder my brain is fried – half the time I can’t remember which kid I left at what camp!

The craziness has been worth it.  The camps they have been at this week are GREAT!
Summer Theater Arts Camp at Church of Rancho Bernardo - Absolutely FANTASTIC!  Superego has loved it.
Boys & Girls Clubs - 4S Ranch - the baby has loved every field trip she's taken and always has great tales of what they've done that day.
Frozen Ropes - Perfect for a child trying to maintain softball skills.  The softball coach is terrific.  Of course, this little venture did cost me $75 in equipment that Ego HAD to have because "I'm the only one without my own bat and helmet".  Don't tell her father I didn't buy it at Play it Again Sports.  :)

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