Mom to the Screaming Masses

Planning to Be Away

I usually travel 3-5 times a year. A couple of those times are for blogging conferences, a couple more for sponsored blogging trips, and one of those is always a trip with my husband for his job. When I get ready for a trip, I follow the same steps that any other mother does. I arrange rides for people. I write down the schedules, lay in the groceries, plan the meals.

In short, I make the plans.I don't ever think about the fact that I do this. I just do it – it's what needs to be done to make my life - and the lives of those I leave behind - run smoothly in my absence.

This week, I started the Word doc that I always create before I travel. I will be gone six days this time, which is an unusual length of time. I will be traveling to Dallas to attend the Blissdom conference, at which I am a community leader in the Life track. After the conference is over, I plan to spend two days with my father. So. It's six full days that I'm gone. And so I set out six sheets of paper, and started to make notes on it.

My kids are asthmatic, and so they take medications for that, and there are other medications that we take as well on a daily basis. I noted all of those. People have activities, practices, and responsibilities during those days, and so I notated those as well. Different people are in charge different days, and that requires careful coordination so that I don't overbook one day and have no adult here the other day. Let it be said also that I am a Grade A Number 1 control freak – I know it, I'm okay with it, and it works for us – and so I try to control everything that I can.

The reason I'm a control freak is because my husband works long hours, and I am the one that's here. So the bulk of the responsibility falls to me, and this is a good arrangement for us. It works. But when the person who runs the show leaves, she doesn't leave her brains behind – unless you count something that looks like this as my brain.

(You have to click on the pic to see the whole thing - typepad doesn't like panoramic images)

I showed the schedule to a friend, who told me that I needed to figure out a way to slow my life down. What's funny to me is that this doesn't seem out of control. This doesn't seem out of the ordinary. It's just what happens during my life in the course of six days.

Compounded by the fact that I am a control freak, although deep inside I know that I cannot control everything.

What is funny to me is that when I going to conferences, and I mention that I made an eight page spreadsheet for a left, other women look at me in horror. Most people don't do this much advanced planning. Some of them have jokingly told me that no one helps them, so they won't help their husbands at all. "It's sink or swim for them, and this is my time!" I get that. I really do. And I wish I could do that. But for us, in this season of our life, that would be tantamount to disaster.

And I don't think that response those ladies give is exactly fair. After all, I am going away. I'm going to a place where all the work is done for me. I'm going somewhere that someone else makes the bed, someone else cooks the food, someone else vacuums the floor. And I don't have to think about it. Much the way that the rest of the family operates on a day to day basis – those things get done, and they don't have to think about them. Sure, they have chores to do, and they do them – but only when they are reminded.

It's my head that holds the facts. And until I figure out a way to leave my head behind, I have to put the facts on the sheet, post them on the wall, and hope that I've covered everything. I try to make it easy on people when I leave, because I know that on a daily basis - juggling of this magnitude is very difficult indeed. Difficult enough to do the things I do on a daily basis, the things that help this larger than normal size family run smoothly: it's even more difficult to find someone else to do those things.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

So, we did the allergist visit. It was great - I really like my kids allergist tremendously. She's exceptionally well versed in asthma, allergies and eczema and knows exactly what needs to be done. We have a plan and a purpose and it feels good.

Unlike my body, which most definitely does NOT feel good right about now.

Allow me to explain.

Mondays are the days that I do my hardest workout. I take a CORE class, which is all kettle bells and weights and free work and it's the hardest stuff that I've ever done. I'm exhausted and sweaty and a wiped out mess after.

I'm not skinny, but I'm strong. And Monday, I was a little bit late, so I got the 15 pound kettle bell - and I did the entire workout with it.

And then I rearranged my entire house. Which is really the crux of this post.

My big girls used to share a bedroom, as did my little girls. (My two boys have their own rooms, as there is a sizeable age gap between them.) Both sets of girls are close in age - 2 ish years between the two - and so it's been a natural assumption for us that both sets of girls would each share a bedroom. We've had discussions and arguments over the past several years in regards to the older girls - I've said before that my kids argue as if it's their life mission, but it's so true. I've told them that for the rest of their lives, they will have to share a room - if they go to college, get married or have a relationship, have a child or two or ten - the odds are really good that they won't have a room to themselves and they will need to know how to compromise, to get along in a smaller space that isn't your own -

Besides, I've always said, if anyone gets their own bedroom, I'm first in line.

But this past weekend, things came to a big, bad, ugly head, and my husband, the man who never gets angry, got very, very angry and he laid down an edict. The front room was to become a bedroom for one older girl, the two little girls were to go into the bigger room, and the other older girl was to go into the little girls room. He'd planned for us to do it three days later -

but, knowing what I know about the very special makeup of our family

I knew that this needed to happen immediately.

Yes, it was that bad. And so when I finished work Monday, I rolled up my metaphorical sleeves, pinned up my black and blue hair, and got to work. I moved a sofa upstairs. I moved another halfway across the house. I brought a bed downstairs, and moved two others. Remember, I'm not skinny, but I'm German Prison Matron Strong like bull.  I moved bureaus, bookshelves, sweated my ass off, and close to six hours later

it was mostly done. Not the organizational stuffs - we still don't have closets completed, stuff needs to go into the attic, and it's going to take time. It's also a bit sad for me on a couple of different levels.

Our house is not a typical house any more. We no longer have a front room OR a dining room - one is a bedroom and will get doors this week, and one is my roped off office. Our house has changed to meet the needs of our family, rather than have a family that fits into a house. We don't need a formal dining room or a sitting room. We need space for two headstrong, opinionated people who need space to grow and develop into good adults to have the freedom to do so. A space for the one in vocal school to play the piano - yes, she moved in to the room with the piano - and sing as long as she wants, and space for the one who needs more personal space and privacy to have it. 

I can't help but feel like I've failed in some way. I had these visions of daughters who got along, who were each others best friends, who braided each others hair and told secrets and giggled together in the dark of the night. I didn't have that. I'll never have that, and I wanted it for my girls. But it may still happen, and if it doesn't, I'm going to have to take a page from my own mother and be at peace with it. Sacrificing my kid's self esteem, watching and allowing some of the things that have occurred over the past months has allowed me to clearly see that I was wrestling with a massive ego issue - if they got along, it was because I was an *awesome* mother. And allowing them to separate and move into different directions didn't fit my idea of what a *good* mom did - but it's going to have to.

Because I *am* a good mom. Even if I don't have a front room or a dining room, even if my kids need space from each other to be allowed to grow up feeling loved and supported, even if my house isn't a show room - I will have to let go of what I thought our family and our house SHOULD look like and embrace what our family looks like and what it needs.

Raising kids is stupid hard, y'all. And I have NO IDEA what I'm doing. EVER.

Well, I DID Say I Needed to Deep Clean the Kitchen...

Last night, my husband had a work function. Yes, it was a school night, and I don't like to go out on a school night. But I weighed that against free drinks + free food + adult conversation, and the balance tipped a bit away from sleep and more toward party.

Shoot me. I enjoy a good party every now and again.

I think it's telling that I also said to myself, You need to post something on your blog. But you really have nothing to post. There's no stories, nothing is really going on.

OH! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

 

We didn't leave the house until almost 10 PM. It felt a bit naughty, as I'm usually crawling into bed at 10 PM. We got to the restaurant, ordered a drink, and sat down with a plate of munchies. Literally, I had eaten two bites of a quesadilla corner, when my phone rang. I saw that it was the house, handed the phone to my husband, and continued my conversation with a girlfriend. With one ear, I listened to the conversation, and caught the words water, ceiling, and turn off the valve.

Excuse me?

He hung up the phone, looked at me and said, "apparently there's a water leak."I think it's telling that both of us looked at each other, nodded, and continued to eat our food. After all, we left two almost grown up kids in charge, told them what to do - it should be fine, right?

I took a sip of my drink, and my phone rang, and his phone rang at the same time.

No. You definitely need to come now, there's water pouring out of the light fixture in the kitchen. There's water coming through the walls in the bedroom upstairs.

Come. Home. Now.

I haven't downed a drink that fast since I was 19. Hey - it was $12 - I didn't pay it, but still - I'm not leaving Grey Goose on the table.

On the way home, we talked about what it might have been. We both came to the conclusion that it must be the hot water heater. After all, the brilliant genius who built this house put the water heater in the attic. After all, that's exactly where I would put a water heater, if I were house builder.

Which, hello, I am not. Thank God.

On my phone, I priced a new water heater, turned to my husband and said, "I hope you like hot water for Christmas, because that seems to be what you're going to get." He chuckled and wished me the same thing.

And we walked in the house, and saw this:

Apparently, when they said the water was coming through the recessed lights in the kitchen, they were not kidding.

 Behold:

My husband  turned off the hot water heater and still the water came out. It filled the buckets, the towels were drenched, replaced, replaced again. And still the water continued. It covered the counters. It filled the sink. It went on the floor, it went –

everywhere.

Yeah, I know I needed to deep clean my kitchen. I just didn't think I needed to do it at 11:30 PM.

I finally went to bed, and my husband decided to stay downstairs to keep an eye on things. When I woke up early this morning, he told me that the buckets had continue to fill, and at 1:30 in the morning, he went up in the attic to see if he could figure out what happened. After all, he had turned off the water to the hot water here, so where was this water coming from?

It turned out that a pipe had burst. And being covered by insulation, it was hidden, and virtually unnoticeable.

So, today when I woke up, I deep cleaned my kitchen. We called the plumber. We got new pipes. We've pulled out drywall.

Next time, I think I'm skipping the party.

50, 50, 50

Not Shades.

No way, no how. Not TOUCHING that topic.

I listen to talk radio when I'm in the car alone - can't do it with kids around, it's too loud - and I heard this one woman who challenged each and every listener to rid themselves of fifty things.

She said that ALL of us could stand to lose fifty things. Fifty things from your house, your closet, your car, your life.

And if you include bulk items - say, magazines - they count as one item. You can get rid of fifty magazines, but they count as one.

So. I thought I'd do the FIFTY challenge. In one week, can you rid yourself of fifty things?

If you want to join, let me know below - and we will check in one week later - next Wednesday. I'll either list my items or take a picture of them - not sure which way will be easier, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do this in my sleep.

Are you in?