1.

I am tired.  That is all.

2.

Ok, that’s not all.  So very often, people tell me “I don’t know how you do it!”  Well, the truth is, I don’t.  And, if you’ll forgive my puling whiny posting, I’m about to get real.  My husband has been out of town for a little while, which means he’s not around to spell me in the evenings.  Generally he’s the one who gets the babies in bed and oversees the dinner chores.  And also the reason we stay up too late in the summer.

3.

Things this week have not gone smoothly.  We were supposed to start a new phonics program to catch Mr R up in spelling before he starts fifth grade next year.  If you remember, his spelling is atrocious.  It doesn’t even begin to make sense, full of strange silent letters and odd combinations.  It hasn’t happened.  The math practice hasn’t happened.  My dreams of a summer full of reading hasn’t happened.  Instead we are just muddling through, bickering and nattering at each other.  Or playing too loudly, too happily, too runningly all through the house.

4.

Everything is falling apart, and it all started with Baby A.  She’s getting molars, then she caught a cold.  The cold came from when I took the littles to McDonald’s Playland.  It never fails that we’ll get sick within a week, but it was pouring buckets and I had to wait for an hour with the little ones while Ms. E and Mr. S had their aikido lesson.  So off we went for an hour of fun, and now we’re paying for it.  Seriously, I think they maybe clean those plastic tubes out once  a year.

5.

So she is cranky and whiny and I’m her go-to comfort source.  If she’s not nursing, she wants to be held.  Well, not just held. Walked.  And so a lot of the other stuff has been put on emergency procedures – PBJ for lunches (with the kids making their own).  Too much TV.  Fights breaking out.  Chores neglected (starting with my own.)  Laundry forgotten, rewashed, forgotten again.  I made dinner Wednesday, but on the way home from aikido I forgot and stopped off for fried chicken.  I don’t know if I’m coming or going.

6.

This mothering thing, well, sometimes it’s hard.  Yes, it is all worth it, but the fact remains it’s hard.  Especially when you have lots of little ones, and often when you have big ones who have an entirely different class of problems.  And so often mommy blogs just gloss everything over and all you see are the children in matching outfits making glitter snowflakes or plucking berries for homemade jam or all lined up Norman Rockwell style daintily licking ice cream cones.  But, sometimes being a mom is down and dirty and discouraging.  But it’s okay.  That happens to us all, even if we do manage to make homemade jam.   Although you will probably never see glitter snowflake pictures on this blog, because glitter was invented by the devil.  It’s the only explanation.

7.

And yet, it is a vocation.  And how quickly the discouragement is forgotten and how swiftly this season of life moves past, never to come around again.  So, for all those moms struggling through summer vacation, or a tough knot of a discipline problem, hang in there.  It will get better, and someday you will sleep for more than 4 hours straight (you really will!) and wake up in wonder that all this is yours to enjoy.  God is good, and from Him all blessings flow.  And He gave those blessings to you, to be part of your life now and forever.  Try to hang onto that promise, when you are craving His rest but it eludes you in the demands of the day and week and year.

As a parting gift, here’s my little motto, which I chant to myself whenever I need a little encouragement.

At least I’m not Amish.  I don’t have to make my own soap.