Have you ever thought you were supermom? Have you ever felt invinsible?
Well I have. Several times, in fact. And every time I felt like I was the best mother since motherhood was invented something always happened to bring me crashing back to earth and face my human failings.
What happened to cause my recent realization? I am so glad you asked...
It all started a few weeks ago when my hubby told me he had to be out a town fro a few days for work. Since he usually doesn't have to travel for more than a day trip, a few days away sounded like an eternity! Still, I was determined that my kids and I would have a successful time while he was away. (Successful meaning we all survived with minimal tears)
So the day of the trip came and I and my 5 kids all waved good-bye to daddy. I got all the kids ready for school and at their various buildings in pretty good time. I kept the house clean, cooked a nutritious dinner, got everybody to their different evening events, and even managed to babysit for a friend of mine. When daddy came home 2 days later I felt great. I had done it!
As my reward for those few days of single mom-ness I got to go to the temple and Time Out For Women. Let me tell you, I felt great! I was renewed and motivated for everything I needed to do in my life.
Then came the big trip!
My wonderful husband had another work related trip that would take him across the country for 5 days. (This is not mentioning all the time he had to spend at work to get ready for this trip) Well, you can imagine that it was a busy time for all of us here at home. But I was still determined that I would be successful. Nay, that I would thrive under in this situation. After all, what is the point in having a good week followed but the amazing uplifting of temple attendance if you can't do better the next week?
Despite the task of taking care of my 5 small children all on my own we had a great week. We were all where we needed to be almost as soon as we needed to be there. We ate dinner together every night. We even got to video call daddy every night which the kids loved.
By Saturday I was feeling so good about everything that we made it an outing day. We went to the grocery store and got doughnuts from the bakery, went to the library and had some play time, and even made a quick stop by the pharmacy. Things were really looking good. I only had one day left to make it till by other half came home. Sunday.
Now with 11 o'clock church it would seem hard to be overwhelmed in the morning. It would seem hard to be late. And your right. It would seem to be that way.
The kids all got up around their normal time. They did their normal Sunday morning things and even all got dressed on their own. This were running so smoothly that I had no problem sitting down to feed the baby at 9. I was so confident in my ability to get my kids to church on time that I even started to plan my Facebook post for the day. It was going to be a photo of all of us sitting in a church pew a whole 10 minutes before the meeting started with the caption "Rocking it as a single mom."
HAHAHAHAHA
Oh the arrogance! Oh the inability to understand what a child is capable of in just a matter of minutes!
After I got the baby down for a brief nap I went downstairs to get everyone's hair brushed. And that's when I first noticed a curly lock of hair laying on the bathroom floor. I called in my oldest and she informed me of which child it belonged to. Brookly Jane!
I called the offending child to me and noticed for the first time that someone had indeed cut her hair... All of her bangs were now less that and inch long!
I haven't ever seen such a bad hack job before and it looked bad. I mean BAD! I lost it then, completely lost it. I started to laugh so hard I was crying! It was hilarious!
Then I noticed that my informant, Hannah, also had something going on with the front of her hair. She had cut her bangs off as well!
She was the one who had been chopping hair and was trying to blame it on her little sister. Wow!
It's really hard for kids to understand how upset you are about a situation when you are leaning on the wall because you are laughing so hard. This was the perfect end to my perfect week and served me right. I had been so cocky and so full of pride.Honestly, I wasn't even that mad until I saw Clark. His big sister had cut a chunk from that back of his hair. Not my precious baby curls! I really think that if Liz had any hair the girls would have cut that too. (They didn't try it on Hyrum because he freaks out if scissors come any where near his head.)
It took me the next hour to even up everyone's hair. There wasn't much to be done about Brookly except let it grow out, poor kid. Hannah thought she looked beautiful after her hair cut.
But Clark, my poor Clark, had to have his hair buzzed. The entire time I kept thinking "By Odin's beard you shall not cut my hair!"
In the end we did make it to church. We were only a few minutes late but it all worked out. And I learned a valuable lesson from it all. Don't plan your prideful Facebook posts first thing in the morning or you will have a crazy day;)
