This week was doomed from the start. My husband started a new job a couple of weeks back, and this week he had his first 48 hour shift. That's right. 48 hours as in - leaves the house and doesn't come back for 48 hours. With no notice.
I like to tell the story to my children that if I have notice for something, I can plan ANYTHING. I am a planner, and a scheduler, which is why I actually actively approached The Mulberry Journal and asked to be an affiliate for their planners. Because I knew that I was going to be talking about them until the cow's came home, and recommending them to everyone that I knew (including random strangers in the street who probably don't have 5 children, or homeschool, and probably don't even need to make plans). But I digress. I like charts, and lists, and notes, and rhythms. I am a person who develops habits intentionally, just so that they can help me to fulfil the goals that I have set myself and my family within my most recent schemes. I mean plans. If I have no notice, then... well, everyone finds out the reason why I have an obsession with plans. With 5 children (3 at home, and homeschooling - 1 at home and breastfeeding), a business, and a casual job (teaching my uni students that I just couldn't bear to let go when I started my business) life can be really busy. Like, really busy. I don't like busy-ness. I like relaxation. Or, as I like to call it, a daily shower. Or a hot cup of tea. Or something commonly known as sleep. Apparently you need sleep, and without it you get hot and bothered, depressed, fat and more likely to have a heart attack... but I digress again (probably because I have had no sleep). Suddenly stuck at home with 4 kids, and one breastfeeding, and another one very young and attention-seeking because Daddy is not home, and whyyyy is Daddy not home? and another that is becoming very aggressive at the one that is upset that Daddy is not home, and with the same need that I have for a daily shower (I get puked on a lot - the shower isn't optional at this point). I took out the TV. Or rather, someone who had had sleep, lugged it up the stairs for me. And plugged it in. And I had a blissful 2 hours of quiet. You know? that quiet that you can only get when your 5 year old is so engrossed in Matilda, that she forgets that you exist, and stops attempting to pick up the baby and juggle her while doing some dance improvisation or another. The kind of quiet where you aren't checking one child for injuries because you have dared to close the toilet door at a pivotal time in their sibling relationship and blood-curdling screams can be heard faster than you can say "I haven't even turned the door knob yet". The kind of quiet where a hot cup of anything doesn't sound like the punchline to a bad joke, and you can't even remember why you don't just plug the TV on 24/7, run a few series of educational documentaries and call that science for the week. I even un-packed the reusable nappies, and used them for the afternoon, feeling wonderfully accomplished in my environmentalism. And then I left it on. And had a sleep. Nobody died. But nobody was in a rush to get out the door in the morning either. One teen glued himself to the bed because he was up until 3am watching something or other, and couldn't bring himself to leaving the bedroom before midday. I remembered that I had forgotten some crucial groceries that I needed to get from the shop yesterday, because I had been home watching that movie. The washing wasn't done by teen #2 so this morning was spent hand-washing my clothes in the shower, trying to create a make-shift breakfast from rice crackers and dried mango, and running out the door to go for a swim in almost 35 degree heat in the middle of the day because I had to wash all of the re-usable nappies from yesterday, hand wash clothes, cook things from the dregs of our produce, try to motivate over-tired teens, and pry Miss 5 from the TV (which I still hadn't put away) which had delayed us a few hours! Miss 5 didn't want to go for a swim, for the first time since starting this experiment. She wanted to watch TV.
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