The trouble with children

When there are kids involved in your life, everything is not just a little harder, it's a LOT harder. When you go out to run errands it doesn't take twice as long, it takes FIVE times as long. I only have two children, but I have to imagine that as you add children you add at least three times the difficulty per additional child. I plan not to test this theory, however. :)

Today was a perfect example of the upped difficulty level. And we were home all day!

It started at 6am with K waking me up to tell me he and his bed were wet. He is a bed-wetter, which is SO annoying (tons of laundry, grossness factor, inconvenient timing). But I don't chastise him for it since I was one too. And it's hereditary. So technically it's my fault. I do get upset with him because he puts up a huge fight if I ask him to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and only recently has consented to even go before he goes to sleep without a huge fight. I'm careful not to blame him, but make him see the need to deal with this issue. So far, not much is happening. Nothing is easy with this boy!

But anyway...

So I was woken up early, had to change K's clothes and bedding and get him tucked back in. Half an hour later, he came in asking for his bear, which he usually sleeps with and couldn't find (and later discovered was in the laundry basket with his sheets). Jim took care of that one since he had to get ready for work anyway.

Another half an hour later, when I was still very groggy, K came back in the room to tell me firmly that it was 7am (the earliest he is allowed to get out of bed) and he wanted breakfast. I was not a happy or gracious mother while getting him his food. I hate mornings and yet have to put forth tons of effort each day to take care of my family and try not to bite their heads off. I don't yell or lash out, but I guess I still need to work on not resenting them.

The next fun part of the day was when I decided to workout. I need to get back into a routine to stay healthy and in shape, so I've started making more of an effort after slacking these past few months. Kids make this endeavor three times as hard! K actually played in his room most of the time (miracle!) and only came out to ask questions and bother S, but S was with me the whole time. My half hour workout took about an hour, with him crying, sitting on me, stepping in front of me, turning off the TV, stealing my hand weights, pushing me, etc. Sigh. I guess it ups the difficulty level, but when he renders it impossible for me to really move, then I'm not getting much benefit.

Later I tried to do the dishes. K wanted to help, but today I just wasn't up to his "help". I just wanted to be done. While working on this chore, however, S took all the recyclables out and threw them around the kitchen, took clean dishes (plastic) from the side table and threw those around, got between me and the cabinets to try to push me away from it, stood on my feet to try to make me pay attention to him, took my hand multiple times to take me places, asked for every kind of food he could see ("na-na?", "bread?") and so on.

Add to this that every time the kids DO leave me alone, they are usually employed with wrecking whatever room they are in. So one chore is done (yay, clean kitchen!) and two other rooms are destroyed ("Why did you take out every car you have and just leave them all over the living room?").

No wonder all I want to do once they are in bed is lay on the couch!