Off the Rails

A friend of mine who works from home gave me a bit of advice once before I started on this adventure. "Sometimes the trains are off the rails," she said. "On those days, you just have to go with it." Today was one of those days. 

I managed to set my oldest son's alarm last night (for the first time) in an effort to ready him for Kindergarten next week. Hence, the alarm went off as planned at 6:30 a.m. and I found myself questioning my wisdom in setting it to begin with. Still, he was up and at 'em early this morning, made his bed, brushed his teeth and we all sat down to breakfast around 7:30. I managed to make it to the Y where the kids played and I worked my butt off. Literally (hopefully). 

Here's where the train started to derail. On the way home around 11, my youngest passed out in the backseat, still exhausted from our weekend. There was no way to rouse him for lunch, therefore both boys were at odds with their schedules, J.T. going to his room for quiet time a full 45 minutes after Beau. That meant a shorter shower for me, and very little time for lunch and phone calls to complete the work on my to-do list. 

J.T. came in and out of his room at least a hundred times in that brief two-hour period, during which I was asked to reassemble legos, find scratch paper and pens and why ants lived underground. "I don't know," I said. "Go back to your room and don't come out until I come get you." Like that ever works. 

I did manage to communicate with a printer, finish an article and do some research for a client before he came the one hundred and first time, speaking loudly enough to wake his brother. That's when I did what most moms do when their children are at odds with each other on a long hot summer afternoon – I loaded them up, and we got out of the house. 

After stopping off at the park, the Dollar General and the grocery store, we came home three hours later with my 2- and 5-year-old singing "shake shake shake your bootie" as loud as possible much to my chagrin. Upon arriving home, I promptly declared it movie time, another mommy standby. (Shame me if you will, but there are days I thank my lucky stars for my DVD player.) 

So, the train jumped the tracks today. Very little was done in the way of house work or work work. But my boys are happy for the time being, and I saved a bit of my sanity all by following that nugget of advice given to me years ago. Sometimes you just have to hang on until the chug chug slows to a sputtering stop. In the meantime, I've decided to save a little more of my sanity – tonight we're having left overs for dinner.