After Work Routine

I get home to dishes in the sink, clothes and toys spread about the house. I try not to complain because Michael does a fabulous job with getting both kids ready for the babysitter by himself and even packing the diaper bag for them. So about 4pm a full sink awaits me.

Most of the time, I get distracted and hardly ever get to wash all the dishes. We have a dishwasher, it just doesn't wash baby bottles, nipples, or anything plastic (tupperware). So it's really annoying because we have lots of said items. I find myself not realizing I haven't washed the dishes (part or all) until the water gets really cold and it's too gross to wash in cold water. So I drain it and fill it up with hot soapy water but it's too hot to wash them so then I get distracted again and thus the cycle continues....


The luck of the draw yesterday was grocery shopping. So this is a familiar scene. I first back up the 4runner into the garage, leave the kids safely buckled in, unload, sling all bagged items on the counters/floor, re-park the car nose in, unload kids + their crap, plus my crap (seriously it's like my lunch bag, my purse, my medela pump bag, my freezer bag for pump milk, the kids diaper bag... you get the idea)... where was I?

A common scene, oh yes. Madison in the bouncer so she can see me (she's beginning to be so needy) and James gets to run around the house or play with his toys in the backyard (that makes me a little nervous since it's still under construction).

Here I decided to get rid of all James half empty snack items and make a snack mix with stuff I found on sale at the grocery store. The marshmallows were kind of stale but... well I wasn't going to throw them away. I've eaten worse than stale marshmallows anyway, believe me...

And of course, life isn't interesting until the hot soapy water becomes the perfect temperature and two babies are crying, and then the stupid target brand ziplock bag busts open under the pressure of about 5lbs of snack mix. It's not until that very moment that you realize that a) better hurry up and wash the dishes b) crap, gotta get dinner planned/started c) nurse Madison d) feed James e) keep the dog from eating the cup of snack mix that just fell on the floor and f) have 30mins to do all of the above PLUS get my running clothes on in time for running club.

NO PRESSURE!

Madison was just gnawing away on her chubby little fingers (or whatever that is in her mouth).

The snack mixed got cleaned up after the dog got put away.

After shoving a warm bottle of water in Madison's snapping turtle jaws, I was able to stay her off as I threw some dinner James way (Hot Pocket --- yuck but it's a last resort... gotta have emergency food!)
I think he actually got some snack mix thrown at him too after his Hot Pocket (gag).

I managed to nurse Madison, change my clothes, run 3 miles and make it back in time to....

Clean the counter, put the non-refrigerated food items away (I plucked out the refrigerated stuff after I unloaded the kids from the car), match up the baby bottles (seriously, when did bottles start coming in 4 separate parts????), wash my pump attachments...

Clean up the other side of the counter, put toys away, wash the remaining half the dishes I couldn't finish (included draining the cold water and running the hot water again).

Didn't even have time to throw dinner together but since I went shopping there was food to eat. Lots of fresh produce! By 8pm the kitchen was clean and Michael was home. He was too lazy to make a sandwich and I was too tired so we had.... hot pockets.

And just like the laws of physics, so there is a law of the dish sink; once all dishes are clean and put away more dishes find their way into a clean sink.

What I find is that #1 - my work is never done. Yesterday was the kitchen, today it was the backyard, tomorrow it will be James room... each room/chore has its turn.

#2 - there is always a crisis at hand. Yesterday was the snack mix. Today it was James putting away the honey he took out of the pantry only to pour it on the shelf that dripped off down the shelf below it that dripped into a puddle on the floor that ran down James' arm that dripped off his arm in spatters across the floor on his run to the sink where I was dutifully washing dishes....

#3 - it's 90% calm and 10% chaos. Everything happens at once around here and its not uncommon for two kids to be crying their eyeballs out at the same time.

#4 - 10pm is when the magic happens and when I can finally wind down and watch a little tv and actually talk to my spouse.

#5 - I don't think I could have it any other way :)