Do You Ever……

Feel like you got to many irons in the fire???

This felt like me today. For a few more weeks I don’t have a cat, but in three weeks we’re going to have a kitten, Peppermint, Delbert (4 yr old), Jimmy (8 yr old), and Zeva (3.5 month old.) Hubby works and goes to college from home. In-laws live 200 feet away and are always a part of daily lives (Father-in-law and hubby run a business together.) Life is always hectic around here, that’s for sure!!

So many thoughts went through my mind today!! This morning I got up earlier than I have been lately with EVERY intention of it being a better and even more productive day than it has been. ONLY to end up with an very hectic stressful day. I’m literally just now slowing down and it’s 9:42pm and I’ve been on the go since 7AM. My wonderful husband must have saw me about to break from reaching my breaking point because he literally took a very quick shower when he came in from working and took all three kids off my hands. I flat out told him if I was a drinker; I would have had to have a drink today!! (The funny thing is I got accused of being an alcoholic once and I’m one of those people that your lucky if you see me drink an alcoholic drink once every three to six years and even then it’s a grand total of three drinks max. With the exception of TWO occasions in my life, once in college with my best friend whom I trusted completely to keep me from harms way and once more right before I moved back to SC to be closer to my mom who was dealing with cancer. Both times I TRIED to get drunk. The first time I got tipsy and passed out before I could find out what drunk felt like and the second time I walked out in a straight line after so many drinks I thought I was going to float out of there and that was back in 2005.)

Anyways, back to my original topic.. today I was dealing with a fussy Zeva because her allergies were flared up big time because the farmers were spraying their fields across the street. Delbert was more than eager to do his school work and didn’t want to wait to get started, but unfortunately, his requires me to help him along the way. Jimmy wasn’t doing what he was “supposed” to be doing. Del wanted me to watch him play with the backhoe (what I call his “man toy.”) Momma wanted me to do things for her. Housework was still staring me in the face reminding me that I had to do it as well. My bladder and bowels were so close to exploding it wasn’t even funny. My phone was going off like crazy over people wanting to gain information and pictures of the items we have for sale. This was all at the same time!! It wasn’t spread out throughout the day or giving me a chance to get things in order. Finally I had to look at everyone and say….STOP!! I’m laughing about it now because in most of the jobs I’ve ever taken on in my life I’ve had to multitask A LOT, and yet, at home I do it EVERY single day ALL DAY long. However, today just was so overwhelming to me.

While I was cooking dinner and doing the dishes and getting laundry going and making sure the kids were taking their showers properly, I was wondering how in the world mother’s did it in the past. I was reading an article about canning and growing gardens and making homemade laundry soap and all those other wonderful crafty things that were actually standard everyday tasks in the past. I just wonder how women did all of those things and raised and educated 10+ kids on their own while their husbands worked to provide for their families?? I never got the chance to really talk to my great-grandmother a lot when she was alive, but I always longed to do it. I LOVE hearing how people lived in the past. I love seeing how far we’ve come in this world. My boys are a great help with Zeva and with each other, and they honestly and truly for the most part are awesome, amazing, talented, and determined little men in the making.

I told my mother-in-law today that Del makes me feel like he thinks I’m “Super Woman.” He expects so much of me and expects me to be able to perform miracles at times. I guess I should feel utterly flattered that he has so much confidence in me. Now when I look back on the day, we did actually do a vast majority of what I set out to do today. The only thing that isn’t done, is the laundry to be folded and put away and the floors swept and cleaning the bathroom. All of those things can be done in less than an hours time tops tomorrow. (Of course, tomorrow is going to be filled with lots of other things as well including taking care of our house in Bamberg, that I keep praying sells soon!!)

Do you have any stories that were told to you by your grandparents/great-grandparents about how parenting was for them???