Reset

Since before Peter was born, I've been doing a lot of praying for patience.  Wiser heads are shaking after reading that sentence.  When one prays for patience, one usually receives not the ability to beatifically smile during chaos, but the chaos during which one practices smiling beatifically.  Coming to the end of a pregnancy while caring for three young children and a very busy husband certainly gave me lots of practice, but I wasn't very successful.  Instead, I found myself wallowing in self-pity ("I'm tired."  "I don't have much time for myself."  "My day never ends." etc., ad nauseum) and this has only increased over the past couple of months.

Apparently, I just needed a bigger test.  So, here's my foolproof method of realizing how good you've actually got it.

1. Have your husband schedule a two-week trip.
2. Three days prior to his leaving, have everyone in the house catch a bad cold.
3. The day he leaves, have one child's cold morph into a stomach bug.
4. Have that child pass the bug to another child.
5. Have that child pass the bug to another child.
6. Have that child pass the bug to another child.
7. Realize that it's been over ten days and your own cold has steadily gotten worse.
8. Get diagnosed with a sinus infection.
9. Get a flat tire on the only vehicle large enough to fit all of the children.

And at the end of all that, I realized that we did pretty okay.  Sure, there were plenty of pajama days.  There were days when the three littlest were in diapers all day.  Yes, we ate more than a couple frozen pizzas.  We watched quite a few DVDs and did a lot of laundry.  We didn't do much school, but weeks like those were part of why we switched to a year-round schedule anyway.

It was while I was doing a mini-reorganization of the kitchen that I realized I'm doing a mini-reorganization of the kitchen. Things can't be too bad.  And they really weren't, despite it all.  After dealing with the past two weeks, taking care of four healthy kids with my husband home and helping will be a walk in the park.

What we managed to get done from October 1st through October 13th, 2012:

• Saxon Math 1: Lesson 46 (writing the number 42, completely skipped the entire lesson on measuring cups and just did the drills and worksheet)
• The Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading: Lesson 97 (review of the long-i vowel pairs and patterns, sight word: buy)
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting Kindergarten: Pages 115-116 (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Listened to a few more chapters of our audiobook, The Magician's Nephew.