Sunday, October 9, 2011

Sunday

I was going to title this post "A Typical Sunday," but upon further reflection, there is no such thing for our family. Instead I will just tell you about today.


Dad is an usher at church and today he had to be there at 7am. My teenager was away at an academic weekend at KU. You know what that means for me. Yup, me vs. eight slippery little kids. The goal is to leave the house at 9:15.

I get Zhen and Ralph up first. The go straight to sit on the potty. I ruffle Theo's hair and then I raise the blinds in the little boys' room so they don't get destroyed by rough hands later in the day. Then I move Zhen's crib so that it sits on top of the air register. If I don't, the boys will stuff all their toys down there later.

Hopefully, the little boys are still sitting down. Zhen is great. He always sits until I tell him to get up. Ralph won't sit too long. When he is done, he is done! Theo waits a little longer while I get Ruby up and sit her on her potty next to Zhen.

Next Theo gets a fresh diaper and heads for the highchair. He gets started on breakfast while I help Ralph, Zhen and Ruby get pants on. Next we flip on the radio, because our rule is "no TV on Sunday morning."

At this point, I'm looking around for my older children. I assign a buddy for each little child a buddy to make sure they eat. We do bagels or cereal before getting anyone dressed. Someone always spills something, right?

This the point where I start freaking out because I didn't lay out clothes and socks the night before. So I start the hunt for matching socks. Ralph, Zhen and Theo get pants, socks, braces and shoes on. No shirts until we are ready to load the van.

Next I have to convince my fuzzball two year old that beauty shop is fun. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. Today she tolerated me combing her hair just long enough to get two crappy little pigtails in place. Good enough.

Everyone is ready to go. Except me. I'm still in jammies and haven't even considered eating. I get 10 minutes to throw on some clothes and a little makeup and we load up the van. I'm usually sweating, so it's nice to leave the house and hit the cool air. Ralph gets buckled up first or else he will end up in the driver's seat pushing buttons and "driving." The other three littles are easy and we roll down the driveway at 9:30.

Late again.

Next time, adventures in the church building.

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