A Day in the Life of a Young Mother (or a Mother of young kids ;)

WARNING: This is long, but I couldn't leave anything out...
I had a day a week ago that I just can't let pass without documenting it somewhere, so here I am!

This was a Wednesday. And it was just one of those days! With winter the kids always feel a little more cooped up and bored. This winter is our first winter that we don't have a TV, so they've been a little extra antsy lately.

It started in the morning, I was sitting down stairs and started smelling something indefinable. I'm almost 8 months pregnant, so for once in my life, my nose is working... and boy was it working this day! Well, I ignored the smell, then Isaac came down stairs and told me he had put lotion on his hands. That was the smell, but I still couldn't place it in my mind, I didn't know which lotion he had used.

Some time passed and Gabe came down stairs and told me that he wasn't sure, but Isaac had written on the walls and he wasn't sure if it was paint or pen or what. So I went up stairs to discover that Isaac, AND GABE had "painted" on the closet door, the hall wall, and the bedroom wall with red nail polish! This was the 2nd smell to overwhelm me this day! So, I got out the nail polish remover and tried to get it off (strong smell #3 of the day) leaving instead a lovely pink smear. Here is how my door STILL looks after trying to remove the nail polish...I have been potty training Isaac and he had just had an "accident" and I had sent him upstairs to change his underwear while I cleaned up. After I gave up on the polish, I started upstairs to put the polish away and my nose was assailed by smell #4 of the day! It was a bathroom smell and I groaned inside.... I hoped it was coming from the bathroom. No such luck. As I got upstairs I noticed Isaac had left a solid something on his bed room floor and had the bag of wipes and was standing naked trying to wipe his bum bum and only succeeding in spreading things all over himself!

So, I put down the nail polish remover and headed over to him to get the wipes and clean him and the floor of the second mishap of the day.

After cleaning the bedroom, I made my way to the bathroom to (still) put away the nail polish remover and dispose of some clean up things from the bedroom. I took about one step in the bathroom and finally identified the 1st smells of the morning. Isaac had almost every single bottle of hair product on the bathroom floor! The hairspray I had purchased 3 days prior was empty, my root lifting spray (from my salon) was on the floor, lotion was on the floor, hand sanitizer was on the floor, and in the bath tub in a big foamy pile was my hair moose (also from my salon and the 1st smell of the day)!!!! Isaac with either the help or audience of Gabe had had a VERY busy morning!!!

By the time this was all cleaned up it was time to go get Hyrum from school. We picked him up and came home to have a quick lunch before we headed to their soccer games that night. At this point in the day I was wishing I could cut my nose off and without thinking decided to make tuna fish sandwiches for the kids!!! And I was faced with offensive smell #5 of the day!

We hurried through lunch, then rushed to get ready for soccer and the evening went pretty well from then on. We had some friends coming to the kids games with us, and we got dinner with them in between Hyrum and Gabe's games and came home for a blessedly UN-eventful evening.

Now you might wonder why I continued to list all the SMELLS that had assaulted me this day. They had to be included because I have decided that they were a tender mercy of the Lord this day. AMAZINGLY enough, the Lord blessed me with an abundance of patience on this day. Through out the whole day as each little disaster arose rather than being mad at my kids or frustrated with them for the messes they had created, I kind of smiled at the things kids do, and only felt irritated and annoyed by the obnoxious smells!!! I think the smells distracted me from the fury that could have reined down on my children on any other given day; given even ONE of those things, let alone all of them consecutively on one day!

So, here's to being thankful that not EVERY day is like this day, and remembering the horror stories so I can recite them to them in later years when I want to throw all my accusations at their feet!!! ;) (wink, wink)

I love my kids and I love being a Mom and I'm thankful for all the little memories and treasures life brings our way! I'm thankful for the good times and the bad, cause lets face it, they make the best stories! =)



P.S. I just picked up my phone to call my husband, and there's chap stick smeared all over the buttons!!! Here we go again!