ROTM

1 day left and nothing achieved. This month was completely crazy. Way too much going on. Emotionally and physically. And one thing more time consuming then the next. Even this post. I started it 3 days ago and never made it past the first 3 sentences.

It felt like no matter what I did, even if I crossed things of my list  it just led to more work. Like cooking. Cross of cocking, add cleaning to the kitchen to the list and so on. Cross of phone call. Add going downtown for the stupid appointment. So when I crossed of label Ballett shoes just to realize I put the wrong name in I had it. I was wondering how on earth I could get the sharpie off without doing to much damage. Then I decided to play this smart. I activated my PR department. Told Marie that I labeled her shoes "Ella" laughed and said:"Should we just add a smiley face so you know they are yours?" She agreed and that was that.

On a brighter note. Tomorrow my cleaning fairy will come for the first time. I am a little nervous. I have never paid someone to clean my house before. Okay. Not quite true. Heather's daughter was here before. But paying a 15 year old feels a little different than hiring a cleaning lady. We have agreed on 2 times a week for 3 hours each. I think I will be able to entertain her for a while. It looks like all my translating money will go to it, but hey, Who cares. She is happy to have a job. My house will be clean and I am already plotting about getting more translations so I can make more money. It's all good in the long run!

THE VORTEX

I have a dresser in the hall with 2 small and 2 big drawers. One of the big drawers has the qualities of a vortex. What ever comes too close, gets drawn in, sucked to the bottom and never resurfaces. During my last emergency clean up I obviously pushed too much into the way of the vortex and it kind of spilled over and something had to be done. 

I now know why I couldn't find any hats during the summer. I also learned that useless paper takes up lots of room. Marie was delighted when she found out those little ponies were hers. I wish I could claim ruthlessness, but I think it was more randomness. 

I am not ready to do this properly yet. In the mean time I will just pick out the easy stuff and deal with the rest later. Or never. I dreamt my house burnt down. But that's another story. 

CALL ME PHOENIX

September has burnt me to a crisp. It brought a new (very neddy) baby, 2 nasty infections, one with a revolting round of antibiotics, barely escaped being admitted to the hospital, back to school and sleep deprivation. Fortunately James was home basically the whole month or I would not have survived.

I missed sweet Marie's first day of school and it broke my heart. She didn't mind much it seemed. I still want to cry thinking about it. I worked so hard towards it to have every thing ready and picture perfect. It was. Only I was missing in the picture.

James has cooked, cleaned, attend all the start of school meetings with teachers that I usually go to, made sure the kids got good slots for piano lessons and even tough he was home for a month it seemed I rarely saw him. He was out runnikg kids to and from appointments and made sure to shield me from the daily challenges of normal life, He took me to the doctor, and was available 24/7 when I was sick.

The last 4 weeks have been rough. Harder on me physically and mentally than I expected. And I expected things to be bad. Now exactly one month after my last post I would be lying if I said I was back to normal. I am not even back to functional. But at least I feel like I can one day be normal again.

I will rise like Phoenix from the ashes. Watch me.

JAMES IS GONE

He left this morning. Things went well until I realized that my "allergies" are more likely just a mean old head cold. I really don't know how single moms cope. I do have one day down, so I only have 9,5 to go. Somehow I will survive. 

Marie's comment on dinner?"I think I will NEVER EVER eat frozen pizza again. It was GROSS!" I'll just take it as a compliment, that my pizza is better. It's just a shame that I already had to resort to frozen pizza the first night. I should have listened to Louisa's advise and planned ahead. 

Alex stayed home from school, he has some random infection on the sole of one of his feet.
Doctor said he should stay off it. I decided that means he should stay home. As that was the easiest for me today, that's what we did.

I feel a little overwhelmed at the moment. It is a good thing James doesn't read this blog. Knowing him, he might get on a flight back. I can do this. I have done it before I can do it again. Really. I can.

CHEAP LABOR

Last night I went to bed around 6:30 to "read a little". 2 pages later I was history. I did wake up 2 or 3 times but decided to not get up until morning. I actually made it. By 7 am I felt well rested and full of energy, and that was after rolling over 2 times. 

After 12 hours of sleep and ready to tackle this house I decided it was time to torture the kids a little bit. I have been way to laid back about daily chores lately. Clean up your own room has not been stressed much and they rarely had to put away their own clothes. The girls had an easy life especially. Marie can whine like no other and I just didn't have the nerve to listen to it. Ella will happily help 9 out of 10 times. Plus, I wanted their clothes to be put away nicely and the just won't happen if they do it. The boys did rather well the last 2 weeks with staying on top of their room, Alex gets assigned little things that he prefers to do "later" and Matt unloads the dishwasher first thing every morning without ever being told. So thanks to Ella and Matt, Alex and Marie were off the hook. That would change today.

I had my mind set on making them each work for 60 min today. I did not tell them, I just announced that it was "help Mommy day" today. Matt had 26 min under his belt before the other 3 even got up. He was done by 11 am. That was the moment I took to announce that any kid that worked for a total of 60 min before 5 pm would be taken to the ice cream parlor. They were all rather excited. Matt hat a smug smile across his face as he had earned it already. Ella wanted to work off her 40 min in one stretch, Alex was confident but didn't get off the couch for his additional 49 min and Marie broke down sobbing (fake!) that that was "way to hard!" During the day Alex decided we could go without him, he'd rather play computer games. Marie spent more time whining then working and Ella realized she still had homework left. 

I sneakily assigned Alex 2 min chores to fill up his account, so when we told him he only had 35 min left to work he reluctantly got going.  Once he was down to 15 min he was excited and found jobs until he was done (smack at 5 pm).

Ella got done easily, homework and all. Marie got an extension and finally finished her 60 min by getting all the groceries from the car. The hardest thing for her was that every time I told her:"do this still and you are done," (referring to yet another 10 or 5 min block) she thought she would be done all the way. So she was rather frustrated. I will have to communicate clearer next time.

We made it to the ice cream parlor after dinner. Once there, the kids happily agreed to making this a Saturday tradition. Work for 60 min and then go to have ice cream. To sweeten the deal we agreed that it would even include the playground if they got done earlier next time. 

I must say that getting 4 hours of labor for the prize of 10 scoops of ice cream was a great deal!