I hate being late. I have always been perpetually early, preferring to arrive with plenty of time to spare, time to grab coffee, relax, to feel calm and collected. Since having kids, however, especially the twins, I am late for everything; or at least, barely on-time. Playdates, appointments, birthday parties, you name it... It drives me absolutely crazy.
Tuesday is our busiest day. Quinn has school in the morning, then we go home for lunch and have to get the baby girls down for their naps, before heading to Quinn's soccer at 4 p.m., about 25 minutes away, when the girls usually sleep until about 3 p.m., and then we don't get home until almost 5:30 p.m., which is when the kids like to be eating dinner before heading off to bed. Just the idea of signing him up for soccer in the afternoon, so soon after naptime, made my stomach churn. But, he LOVES soccer, and he's really getting good at it, and I want to see him having fun and being a little boy. So, we enrolled for an 8 week session.
This forces me to fall back on my time management and organizational skills, which were once so honed, but have definitely faultered since having the twins. My head is constantly spinning, thinking of all the things that lie incomplete around me, all the things I have coming up to accomplish, cleaning and laundry and shopping to do, and the ever-so-important daily snacks and meals to prepare, often while the kids are either ripping the house apart while I cook, or they're wrapped around my legs in hysterics, wanting to be picked up, attended to. If only I could freeze time, so I could plan ahead, instead of constantly falling behind, but of course, life doesn't work that way. I'm just waiting for the day where I feel like I'm "caught up" on something, anything.
In the meantime, I have to do the best I know how. While the girls are napping (often for only an hour) and Quinn has "quiet" time (as quiet as a 4-year old boy can boy), since he no longer naps, I have to prepare snacks for the kids to take to soccer, get Quinn dressed and ready to play soccer, prepare the quickest dinner I can so I can turn everything on on the stove/oven the second we return home, so that dinner is ready as close to dinnertime as possible. Plus, take care of any tidying up, laundry, putting away of groceries, making of phone calls, etc, that may still need to be done. And eat my own lunch...
Today, with my best intentions in place, I had a second load of laundry going, snacks packed, fresh waters poured and by the door, dinner prepped, Quinn in his soccer clothes (I could just eat "lunch", a Mojo granola bar, on the drive there). I took our items out to the car, got the girls coats and shoes on (while the "ready" one ripped the shoes off the shelf and attempted to take off her own coat or shoes), finally put the baby girls into the car while Quinn went potty one last time... derailed when Quinn forgot to open the lid of the toilet, which resulted in him peeing on the lid and down the sides of the toilet, so I had to stop and clean the toilet and bathroom floor, finally got Quinn out to the car and buckled in (which he refuses to do himself...), ran back in for my coffee. 3:35 p.m., not too terrible a time to be enroute to soccer in Acton (again, 25 minutes from my house in Sudbury). 3:45, while stopped at a traffic light on the way - Quinn: "Mommy, I'm thirsty, where's my water?"; Me: "oh crap... it's still at home on the windowsill by the door... thinking...thinking...thinking". There was absolutely no time to turnaround and go back for it, and the water bottle in the car that I'd had for a week was almost empty, and the girls cups, which I did have, were already drunk from, cold germs and all... At 3:50, we pulled into the drive-thru at Wendy's on the way, because there's no way I have time to unload three kids to run into a gas station or "convenience" store. We order and receive a "special water", which Quinn is delighted about, thank God; and I managed to resist the urge to order french fries and other goodies, my stomach rumbling from hunger and anxiety. 3:57, we pull into the soccer complex in Acton, barely time to load the baby girls into their double stroller, along with all our belongings, and run inside. 3:59, we get inside, Quinn runs into soccer class and does a wonderful job, smiling the whole time, truly beaming with happiness and with prowess. He's such a cute little soccer player, and he loves every minute of it, and the baby girls love eating their bananas and then some popcorn from the concession stand...
All that rushing around was worth every second of worry and anxiousness that I went through, just to see the smiles on those three little faces. Someday, maybe I will arrive early for things again, get to enjoy a hot coffee, relax, feel calm and collected. Now that's something to strive for and practice for, every day in the meantime...
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