Reject #9

Title: 4 Stops a Day

Date: March 10, 2009

I have 4 bus stops each day: 11:15, 12:40, 2:20, and 3:45. Don't get me wrong, it's fantastic-- they are directly in front of our house, and it saves me from loading kids in the car 4 times a day to get to and from school. But it also means that I have to feed Sam lunch at 11, Mia lunch at 12:30, Sam a snack at 2:30, and Mia and Sam (again) a snack at 4. Nate has his own random eating schedule that really isn't much of a schedule and never seems to coincide with when the rest of us are eating. I feel like I feed children ALL day long. And then there's the nap schedule. Nate takes 3 naps a day. Between his naps and the bus stops, it's almost impossible to leave the house except to get the mail. Which I guess is a good things because apparently whenever I do go out I get speeding tickets, and since Mark just got laid off this week, we need to avoid getting any more of those. And when Nate isn't napping, he wants to be held. Maybe it seems worse lately because he's been sick for the last few days, so it seems like all the time. He's almost crawling, and I'm not sure which is worse: a clinging baby, or a mobile baby in a house full of Polly Pocket accessories. Choose your poison I guess. I've got about 1 1/2 hours with both Sam and Mia alone each day (with Nate). When they're together all they do is fight, but when they're apart they get bored and do whatever it takes to get attention from me.

So the point is: I spend almost every day at home getting NOTHING done. It's a blast. Bored? Come on over. Trust me, we're not doing anything.

Notes: This is one reject I didn't edit or revise at all, even when I first wrote it. This is the original, uncut, 100% unfiltered first run. The writing is not spectacular; it's simply me spewing out how I felt about my life at home with 3 kids last year. I meant to add more to it, but (surprise) got interrupted and that was the end of that. When I got back to it a few days later, it seemed whiny, and even I can get self-conscious about that. Now looking back on it, I find it an amusing little snippet from a rather non-amusing era of my life. A year later, I still have 4 bus stops, though more spaced out. We can actually leave the house for more than 2 hours at a time. Nate is only napping once a day. Mark is no longer unemployed. So far, no speeding tickets this year. Mia and Sam, though, are still constantly fighting with each other or fighting for my attention. And I'm still trying to catch up from not getting anything done for an entire school year.