A day in the life

Before I was a mom, I never would have thought that the every-day would consist of so many random things. Not necessarily bad, just random. Like 10 years ago I probably didn't think 10 years from then I'd be getting in bed and and have to fish kitchen utensils out of the sheets, you know?

Sample day:

Let first baby awake try to feed himself oatmeal for the first time. Change mind for second baby. Clean oatmeal out of hair (mine).

Put in laundry. Happen to notice at least most of the toys that made their way into the laundry basket before it goes into the wash.

Try new white shirts on boys for family photos. Leave on for 10 minutes. During 10 minutes, oldest child lets twins into the bathroom unbeknownst to mom. More enthusiastic splashing than usual produces copious amounts of water on the floor and twin B slips repeatedly cutting his lip and gum (ever so sanitarily) on the toilet seat, managing to bleed all over white shirt intended for family photos.

Go out on a walk. Stroller tire pops. Hobble back to the condo with three children in gimpy stroller.

Child's favorite fire truck M.I.A. Search the house. Search the garbage can full of raw chicken. Find two different cars, a kitchen towel and a new pack of colored pencils. No fire truck. Darn, maybe it was in yesterday's garbage.

Keep searching the house for days. Find another missing bottle in the process! This one is BLACK. Must have been there for months. Bottle goes in garbage. No chance of attemting to clean that one.

Babies room still reeks of sour milk, however. Strip all the sheets and wash for the second time in two days.

Ipod found! Must be some secret spot behind the couch because I'd already looked back there 7 times.

Second rotten bottle found. Thrown in garbage.

(Days later: favorite fire truck found in lobby of condo building! Can't stop talking about return of the fire truck.)

Try to run to the bathroom by myself before anyone catches on. Don't succeed. But once the screaming dies down become amused by my view from inside the bathroom as toes, fingers, cars, toys, cell phones and movies make their way under the door.

Spend an hour trying to move displaced items back to their homes - baby monitors from the toy box back to the kids rooms, movie from between slats in furniture to movie cabinet, cards under the rug back to game closet, spoons shoved in the elliptical back to the drawer, legos in fridge back to toy box, every single shoe from parents closet strewn about the house back to respective closet....

Attempt to do some pilates. Give up after 4 minutes of getting sat on, jumped on and rolled over. Poopy diaper sitting on the face was the last straw.

Babies have serious diaper rash. Let them run around with diapers off for a while. Decide this is a bad idea when siblings find pee on the floor before I do and gleefully play in it.

Refusing to nap three year-old falls asleep on the couch far too close to bed time. (Oh, Curious George has turned to BBC World News. Perhaps that's why.) Babies entertain themselves sticking their fingers in his mouth and pulling his hair while he sleeps.

Stunned to find another toilet time I wasn't aware of. Only evidence was wads of wet toilet paper strewn around bathroom shower, curtains, floor, walls.... Could the 3 year-old have let the babies in and out of the bathroom without me knowing?

Husband finally home from work! Informs wife that he is going to a movie. Wife deflates.

Wife asks him to watch the babies so they don't pull the folded laundry off the couch for a minute while she hurries and puts it all away. Husband doesn't take her warning seriously. Babies make a mad dash for folded laundry and double-handedly pull off articles of clothing one by one in rapid succession, undoing in 10 seconds what took 20 minutes to do.

Husband leaves for movie. Children mad whenever anyone leaves the house and they aren't involved. Wife doing dishes as husband leaves. Wife finishes dishes. Can't find children. Finds children all running amuck in the hallways apparently after oldest child unlocks the door and lets them all out when they wanted to follow daddy.

Wife calls husband and barks at him for leaving her alone with crazy children and tells him he better come back with a safety lock to install on the door OR ELSE.

Husband gone, wife gives babies Tylenol and bottles of milk to put them to bed!

Spend 45 minutes deleting 75 jppjpjijfhphgoihehis.qiqiq.a.aaithjg contacts from cell phone.

Wondering if that could be the reason cell phone kept saying memory full and finally flipped out and completely erased everything. Or if it was the enterers of the 75 jppjpjijfhphgoihehis.qiqiq.a.aaithjg contacts that erased everything.

Spend another 45 minutes trying to navigate and fix results of erased phone with main menu no longer available.

Finally go in to see why the 3 year-old is still yelling his face off long after having been put to bed. Screaming bloody murder stops immediately as door opens and calm voice says, "I don't want to wear dinosaur jammies. I want a different shirt."

Man. 10:30pm and still never got a chance to exercise today. And a lot of fudge stripe cookies were consumed. Husband is out late, might as well get it done.

Exhausted. 1am. TIME FOR BED.
(For as long as it lasts, anyway, which turns out to be 3:30 am.)

Probably shouldn't have exercised. Knee hurts and is keeping me awake. Doesn't matter much because of 3:30 crying anyway. Give bottle. Crying persists for 30 minutes. Finally realize the culprit - who poops at 3:30 in the morning?

Ugh. Morning again. That was way too short.