Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Fitting It In

How do people do it? I mean...today was an early day...

I picked up the Monkey at 5:15 p.m. Got home, changed clothes, invented/played three left-hand games (crab walk, wheelbarrow, grip-steal), supervised his (quick! I promise it will be so quick!) logon to feed his Webkins, started dinner, started him on his homework, tried unloading the dishwasher (fail! -- apparently turning off the hot water to the sink makes the dishwasher not so much work -- oops!), corrected homework (see how this little 'b' has a circle just under the dotted line? All your little 'b's need to fit in there), reloaded the dishwasher, turned on the hot water, restarted the dishwasher...

THEN we....contemplated rudimentary algebra over dinner (this word has 11 letters and this one has 12...how many more letters does the bigger word have? What do you have to add to the 11 to get to the 12?), celebrated conquering said math problem with dessert, encouraged more homework, started him on his "15-20 minutes of reading" for the night, made the activity for Thursday night's homework, made a double-sided chart of left-hand activities for him to transport between Monkeydad, school and my house to remind everyone of the PT work he's supposed to be doing (and to collect stickers for positive motivation), created a "Get Well Soon" card for his cousin (who's having surgery to drain off a staff infection in his chest...at 7 years old!!), marked off successes on the Left Hand Chart, wrote a note to the teacher, made sure he loaded everything in his bookbag for tomorrow, bath, teeth, stories, bed (finally!) at 8:40 p.m.

...and this was a night that started early!! And a dinner that required no more effort than boiling ravioli and peeling a banana (and tossing salad on a plate for me)! I have no idea how we'd accomplish all of this on A) a night that started closer to 6 or B) a night with a dinner that actually required some culinary skill.

Do the math: that's 3 solid hours of homework and physical therapy-ish activities (with a few mouthfuls of pasta, carrots and banana shoved in for good measure). And he's only in Kindergarten!!

Pardon me while I pass out now...

3 comments:

Cheryl said...

This is why I can't work right now. Add another child to that who wants to nurse every 1-3 hours! Little Miss didn't get a bath tonight...again. I have a smelly child because I can't fit a bath in before 7pm and I didn't even do anything specific today. (Ice cream, Target...you get the idea.) You are amazing my friend, truly.

MonkeyMom said...

Actually, I'd argue that you're the amazing one -- you've got 2!! And ETWWR? She's got 3!!! My hat is off to the moms of multiples... I don't know that I could do it...

Unknown said...

I have one baby - JUST ONE - on the way, and you're making me nervous. I think maybe I'll home-school him/her (in the fine art of being my research assistant. It'll be like kids that grow up on a farm.)