This Old House...

If I were to post pictures of how my house looks right now,

you'd seriously think I had just survived a category 5 hurricane!!!

More like 5 LITTLE HURRICANES !!!

Because you see I have five little monkeys and they all like to jump on the beds,

and throw their clothes on the floor,

and run around wild trying to wrestle with each other all the

while making shrieking noises that instantly cause a headache to settle in,

and not leave till you decide to finally go to bed for the night,

and sometimes not even then.

It's pulling nail and tooth just to get them to

do anything worth value to help "clean-up"

or better yet "GO TO BED".

People often ask me what my favorite time of the day is...

well I can tell you when it isn't ...

BEDTIME!!

Followed by, the hour right before DINNER,

and first thing in the MORNING.

Does that about cover it?? I think so.

Why aren't those my favorite times?

Why??

Well, because those seem to be the times during

the day when my kids are the whiniest,

grumpiest, LOUDEST,

getting borderline obnoxious, rather annoying,

and they possess little patience,

and aren't agreeable to

"HELPING"

out when asked.

They seem to fight with each other a LOT at that time of the day.

As far as bedtime goes... it's BAD!!!

I live in a house that is ever so small.

It is very OLD!! So yes, it does have CHARACTER!!

BUT, there are disadvantages to this house,

and not just a few but a lot!!

First off, we have a three bedroom house,

and there are five kids....

2 boys and 3 girls....

and mom and dad.

(The dog sleeps outside, in case you were wondering)

Boys sleep in the front room,

while the girls have the back room,

and I share the room in the middle with Chris.

We only have ONE bathroom,

so needless to say,

we have an open door policy in our family when

someone is using the shower.

We have very few outlets in our house and even

fewer phone jacks. Every heater vent in the house

is placed directly under our ILL windows.

(meaning no insulation).

There isn't a place to store linens, the master closet

is a MASTER JOKE!!

And with five kids trying to use the same space in

two different rooms. Well, that makes my job of getting

kids to bed really TOUGH!!

They share a room, and the staggering bedtime... doesn't work,

on a nightly basis because of the things that have to be done.

One girl eggs the others on, and vice versa .. like they

have some kind of GIRLS club in there, and

they only hold their meetings, once Mom or Dad has

turned the lights off to the room. They giggle and

laugh, and talk for hours.. for some reason they just

don't want to go to sleep.

T-man, well he's pretty easy about getting to bed, but his

little brother Little Man, is a different case altogether.

I used to like my evenings so I could do my quick 20 minute

pick up through out the kitchen and living room and then

I could sit and enjoy a TV show, or read a book, or work

on some other project of my choosing.

(yeah, yeah, so I'm blogging right now...

it's being counted as my journal time)

Now, this is how I spend my evening:

My two year old doesn't want to stay in his bed,

and the bedroom door he's mastered the art of

opening it, so he'll just come right out. After several times

of taking him right back to the bed and covering him

up and him telling me "Your mean mom!" (in a grumpy voice),
I sometimes try to rub his back, and sing even more

songs to him after singing to him for 20 minutes when

I first started.

Call me mean if you want, but sometimes, I will just hold the door knob

so that he can't come out. So I sit on the floor in front of

his door, and hold the handle, while in the other hand

I use my other hand and hold a book and read.

This method works some of the time. Like 20% of the time.

While I'm trying to get him to stay in his bed, and fall asleep

the girls keep coming out, and complaining about

anything and everything. They don't remember for some

reason that I said it was time to go to bed. Not time,

to make more demands on MOM, especially

ones that you could have taken care of earlier in the

day. The whole while, T-man has probably been

asleep for 45 minutes. The house looks a wreck, dishes piled to the sky,

overflowing from one counter top to the next, over to the table.

The floor has crumbs, and spills that haven't been officially

cleaned of in months probably. The laundry is piled high, on the

love seat in the living room, because I don't have anywhere

else to place them, when I don't have time to fold them

and put them away. So if I get lucky and have a night where

Little man actually falls asleep by 8 pm or earlier,

I'll take that time to fold the laundry, so that first thing in the

morning it can be put away. And/or I'll wash up the dishes

that still need to be done. On the nights that he doesn't... well

guess what happens, it gets pushed to the next day.

And the daytime, doesn't always prove to be fruitful either.

And don't forget that this increases a bunch, when someone or

several in the house are sick.

** Don't forget I'm not getting a lot of sleep during the night.

Because Little Man doesn't stay asleep. Time to talk to the pediatrician

again. Because he needs to be checked out, and find the cause of him

not staying asleep. I'm so exhausted.

I send my girls to bed between 8 and 8:30pm and they are usually still awake

easily until 10 - 10:30 and sometimes later...

But I bet if I had a room for each of them to be in, they would

fall asleep a lot sooner. And I wouldn't have to deal with all the

whining and complaining.

I know someday, that will happen, well maybe not the NEW HOUSE,

but that I can send them to bed, and within 15 minutes they fall asleep.

Ahhh, that is a moment worth waiting for!!

In the meantime...

I'll cherish them for the crazy little, excuse giving, drink needing,

bathroom going, playing, arguing, and giving me hugs and kisses

people that they are.