Friday, January 30, 2015

Happy Crazy Backwards Day--True Confessions of a Working Mom

Being a mom is hard work. Being a Mormon mom is a blessing with lots of responsibility. Being a working Mormon mom is like trying to juggle EVERYTHING! Show up. Look nice. Be nice. Get the job done. Try and keep your priorities straight.

 I love being a wife, a mom and a Mormon. Especially with angelic help, which I believe I am entitled to. I  try hard. I really do. HOWEVER, sometimes, I get a little mixed up. Or a lot mixed up. And it's usually funny. (If it's not funny now, it will be in ten years.) If I can't be perfect, I am at least going to laugh. Here's a story of how all my ambitions and good intentions went completely backwards.

 The backwardness actually started with my working all night, and then going to bed while my family was waking up. Things just got crazier from there. I sat around all day trying to wake up and forgot to eat, so I was starving by the time I left my home, where my husband was MAKING DINNER, to go hang out with some girlfriends, where I knew there would be no food. I even had a headache coming on. That backwardness was just the beginning. I realized that I had forgotten my sewing machine, that my hair and makeup were not done, and I was headed to a craft night with two very pretty ladies who never forgot to do their hair and makeup. This is going to be good.

When I arrived at my friend's house, I found that no one was at home, they all having gone to the fabric store. One friend had sent me a text of the change of plans but it was unclear to me (probably I was reading it backwards) and the other friend's text ended up somewhere in Hawaii (where I would like to be but in the interest of opposites, reversals and backwardness, I was not there to receive my text.) My husband advised me to come home and bring back a movie for us to watch together. At that point, I really wanted to, but my friends felt so bad for the crazy communication that leaving now would have been cruel and insulting.

I sat there in my car, watching the house and being as creepy as possible. (Actually, I was watching Internet videos and so missed the exact moment of arrival.) After forty minutes of this, I finally went inside and had a great time eating candy and popcorn for a nutritious dinner and watching the same movie I would have seen with my husband that night. No crafts after all. Once the movie was over, I declared that I needed to go home, sent a text to my husband to that effect, and then proceeded to stay another twenty minutes.

 Having asked hubby to get a movie for us to watch, I went home expecting to snuggle up in my messy house. What I found was a much tidier house than I had left. Backwards, but a good backwards. There was no movie. I checked my phone, (which had been on silent the entire night!) and found a message from my love, asking me to get the movie, as the kids were in bed. There was no time for it anyway. Oh, well. Might as well go to sleep, which he immediately did. Having slept all that morning, a REM cycle was much more difficult for me to achieve. I knew I was going to be up late, which was bad, because I expected company in the following early afternoon and the house was not up to par. I finally drifted off into a troubled dream state and that was the official start of my Crazy Backwards Day.

The alarm must have rung eighty times before my husband got up and took our oldest son to school. The knowledge that my youngest boy would tear apart the whole house in short order was enough to drag me out of bed too. Hubby and Denny were gone and hot cereal was on the table. Perhaps it was a nod to Opposites Day but whatever the reason, my husband had switched the bowls--not the portions, just the dishes around, giving the toddler a giant bowl and reserving the baby bowl for me. Good, I thought, I'm just going to embrace it all. If this is backwards day, bring it on.

I ate my breakfast, calling down blessings upon my hubby's head for it, and then decided to clean the house. I was totally exhausted, but GUESTS WERE COMING and the house must be in order. I started by unloading the dishwasher of all the dirty dishes that I had put in there clean the day before. (Backwards is beautiful.) I planned the meal I would cook, (pasta with homemade sausage) and grabbed all the grody towels and stuffed them into the washer. I went to dress and was combing my hair when a ginormous wave of fatigue jumped on my face and beat me into submission.

"You need a haircut and a bath," I told my son as I changed back into my pajamas. "I'll cut your hair in a little while" and I lay down on top of the blankets in my unmade bed. "You have time to get some cleaning done while Mommy is napping." With that, I slept like a baby, which means I woke up all the time and screamed. "Leave the fridge alone! Don't break that! Turn the water off! Did you clean your room? That's too loud!"

I eventually got up. It was time to pick up my son from school, so naturally, I started frantically cleaning my house again. After a while, I knew that my guests would be arriving, so I immediately left the house. They texted me that they were running late. Perfect. Me too. I picked up my son, and returned home to find peeps on my porch. They looked surprised to see me in my pajamas but I just smiled and asked if they'd been waiting long. Once we got inside, I wanted to be the best host ever, so I left them all alone in the living room while I changed into slacks and a sweater.

The house was presentable, sort of. The bathroom was cleaner than it looked and the living room looked cleaner than it was. I started making a late lunch and needed my apron, only to remember that it was still in the washer. I didn't get a chance to talk much. My kids were doing plenty of that anyway. My four-year-old got so excited that he kept shouting. Every time he did this, he disturbed the baby, which disturbed his mama, which disturbed all of us. Things were going great.

After a while, my guests said they had to go visit other friends and so departed with hugs. My oldest son burst out crying because they couldn't stay, and screamed after they left because nobody would leave him alone. He got a timeout and then we ate our pasta and sausage by ourselves. It was delicious. Heedless of the cold outside, my boys ate huge glasses of ice and played Ghost in the Graveyard in daylight.

This has been about the best Backwards Day ever, although, my poor guests got the brunt of it. Someday I'll have them over again and I will be at home, on time, and dressed. The only thing I want to do now is watch the second half of a girly movie and then cuddle to sleep with my love.

 My boss just asked me to come in for an evening shift. I guess I'd better change into my work clothes. Now if I can just pull these pants over my head and work my feet through the sleeves of my work shirt, I'll be set. I'll head to my job as soon as hubby gets home from his. When I come back, I'm starting this day over. When you run a backwards day in reverse, it comes out right. (If you get enough sleep.)




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