Bad Mommy!

Clearly I suck at single-parenthood. No, I am not actually a single mom, I just play one on Mondays and Tuesdays when Joe works 10 hour days and gets home late. And clearly, I am not good at it.

The morning started with Quinn being wishy washy as to whether he would like to go to gymnastics class. I am fine either way because while normally I like to encourage my kids to attend things that I am paying for, I was dead tired and in no mood to haul two boys and a baby out the door for class. He decides he does want to go. I mention that he will need to change out of his jeans when we get there. This is a break in the routine for him as he normally wears his gym clothes there. (Should have been my first clue... actually, my second -- his not wanting to go should have been my first because as a rule, he loves gymnastics).

Anyhow, we get there and for the first time head for the changing area. He doesn't like the idea of changing in front of so many girls. Luck would have it, no boys there at this particular time even though technically there are 3 boys in his class. So he is pouting and refusing to change and to make a long embarassing story short, I had to man handle him to get him dressed and he missed half his class while sitting on the gym floor trying to decide if he would like to participate or not. Fabulous fun! (not.)

So then I end up taking a nap with the baby in the afternoon and leaving the twins to their own devices -- luckily they did not take the house apart or manage to burn it down, so that went OK. But I still feel guilty doing it. Then this evening my plan for supper fell through due to missing ingredients (and there is no way I am taking 4 kids to the grocery store right before dinner time by myself!) So I opt for tortellini for Quinn and Andrew and pancakes for Connor and I (I am still trying to be mostly no dairy and Connor doesn't like tortellini much). These are new whole wheat pankcakes so I wanted to try them.

Well... somehow I managed to totally burn the pancake skillet. To the point that the fire alarm went off and it was just the shortening burning that set it off. The noise scared the baby whom Andrew was looking after a bit... so it felt like total chaos -- alarm going, me trying to turn everything off or down while yelling at people to open windows and doors and then trying not to overcook or burn the tortellini, and baby screaming while Andrew is getting upset about holding said screaming baby. SIGH...

Joe will be very unhappy with the state of what is essentially his pan. There is a reason I never cook the pancakes.

But for the moment, the baby is happy, the boys all got fed (I used I different skillet -- the no stick kind!) and I thought I'd better write it all down to remind myself that there are days like this and it is manageable in the end.