Until I get back into the swing of things, I’ll be occasionally reposting from my own blog, Antithete. I wrote this one earlier today.

It has been challenging, learning to mother four children, and take care of six peoples’ worth of laundry, dishes, and general dirt. Not to mention they all like to have mommy time, and I like to have one-on-one time with them. Once again, the schedule is my friend. I know plenty of you hate schedules and feel completely weirded out that I am SCHEDULING things in order to feel on top of them, but for me, WOW, it works. It works awesome!

With my schedule laid out, whether or not it ends up being followed during the day, at least I feel like I know what’s coming. And I can make sure each kid’s laundry gets done, that they each get baths or showers on a regular basis, that they get their schoolwork done, that they eat, and all go to bed at basically the same time every night. Now that the weather is nicer, we have a lot more outdoor recesses, which is all kinds of awesome too, almost as awesome as my schedule. Heh.

I think the funniest thing that happened in my brain after the baby was a week or so old was that I suddenly realized OMG I HAVE A SIX-PERSON HOUSEHOLD TO MANAGE. AIEEE! I could hear all of you giggling uncontrollably over my sudden DUH moment, I really could. Because HELLO, obviously there were going to be four kids now, right? Six people altogether, right? I spent so much time worrying about having enough room in the car, and focusing on getting the van we have now (w00t w00t eight seats baby!), that I kind of forgot to spend time figuring out ahead of time how to make sure things got done around the house in a timely manner.  (Read: in a manner that does not make me pull out my hair and cry into my coffee cups.)

I never dreamed that by the time I was thirty years old, I would have four children. I also never dreamed of the kind of dedication and hard work it is to have four children – not so much the providing for them, because that’s a hard work all unto itself – but the day-to-day caretaking of them. The clean sheets, tasty nutritious meals, and playtimes. Teaching manners and how to not bonk each other with toys when playing. Teaching how to communicate with each other. Teaching math concepts, proper grammar, and how to put away your dishes.

I guess what I’m saying is that I have arrived at a point in my life that I’m a little at a loss to know what to do with. Apparently I am a mature adult with four well-behaved, intelligent children, and goshdarnit if I have NO idea really how I got here. How am I supposed to comport myself? Does this mean I have to stop shopping in the juniors section of Walmarts? Am I allowed to keep dying my hair raspberry pink when I feel the need to?

Which, by the way, I am going to do again soon. I even bought the hair lightening powders a few days ago – I have the hair dye stocked up in my linen closet when I bought it on sale last year.

P.S. Can you tell I am feeling much much better?

P.P.S. Troy is working a third shift at the factory now. They re-hired him (he had quit to try his leather business full time, but it wasn’t bringing in enough income yet so he asked for his old job back and BANG PRESTO, the NEXT DAY he got it back. I’ve never known anyone with that kind of crazy luck). This means I get the bed all to myself at night, heh heh heh. And also it means NOT a new schedule for us really, except for him needing to sleep during part of the day.

P.P.S.S. Now I don’t know how to end this post. I think I will just stop typing. The End.