All This Just to go to Work?

I woke up this morning and was thrilled knowing I didn't have to work today. I have worked the last four days in a row and need today to get caught up before going back to work this weekend. I work in a Medical ICU. While work is mentally and physically exhausting, it's the preparing and packing of the children before work that is the real challenge.

The boys all go to a family daycare (that we are quickly taking over) when I go to work. Miss Tammie has truly become part of our family becoming a second mother to all the boys. The boys enjoy going and have fun playing with the other kids. Getting four boys prepared for a day away from home and away from mommy is insane. It requires packing so much stuff. I found a giant soccer backpack at Ross last year and it works perfect. It's huge and has tons of pockets and zippers. Packing all four boys each day is so much work. Yesterday morning went something like this:

Put in six, size one diapers for Petey, look for the wipes, they're missing, find the open wipes in the bathroom (someone tried to wipe and it didn't go well), clean the toilet and disinfect the floor, add water to the wipes (the were all dried out) and pack those, look for Finn's diapers, we're out, throw a cloth diaper (perfect for emergencies) out for Finn and make a mental note to stop on the way to Tammie's to buy more diapers, can't find Finn's rash cream, find Finn's rash cream under my bed along with some dirty dishes (who has dirty dishes under their bed? that's disgusting), boys will be swimming today, so I add two swim diapers, find the sunscreen, it's expired, find another bottle of sunscreen with no expiration date, assume this means it's ok and pack it, find Finn and Petey's sun suits (UV protected full body suits), pack them, look in Petey's dresser for outfit to wear now and spare outfit for today, nothing in his dresser looks big enough today, did he grow that much overnight?, find some baby gifts that I had not put away yet, Thank you Miss Tammie for buying 3-6 mos onesies, they look like they'll fit perfect, remember that I never sent a thank you to Miss Tammie, feel guilty for awhile, pack one outfit and lay one in Petey's car seat to dress him in when I get him up, Tommy wakes up and growls at me when I say, "Good Morning Sunshine" (I guess he's Johnny Rain Cloud today), look for two outfits for Finn, he has 17 pairs of pants and two pairs of shorts in his drawer today, take both shorts and keep searching for shirts, find one shirt and decide to be satisfied with that, pack the spare shorts and set out the other outfit for today, look for swim trunks for the big boys, find a pair for Tommy, it has poop in it, in his drawer with poop in it, probably hiding it from me, decide we live in the most disgusting house ever, make a mental note to clean and sanitize everything tonight when I get home, find two pair of swim trunks in Gavin's drawer and take both, Tommy will have to wear a pair that's a little large, good punishment for putting poop shorts in your dresser drawer, pack the shorts and look for outfits for the big boys for today, find them quicker that expected but no socks, make another mental note to buy more socks the next time I'm at Target, didn't we just buy two packs? Tommy is fighting with Gavin who is now awake, Tommy yells at Gavin for smiling at him, Gavin smiles bigger, I go off in search of shoes, Tommy follows me, I decide I will not talk to him in hopes of avoiding an argument, find four left sandals for Finn, take 30 seconds to daydream about the perfect shoe system, decide it's never going to happen and keep searching, find a right sandal, brush the spider webs off and keep looking for big boys shoes, find Tommy's basketball shoes with a pair of socks stuffed inside of them, socks look clean, SCORE! Finally find a pair of sandals for Gavin, they're the raccoon sandals (we left them outside one night and the raccoon chewed them up a little, still wearable, but full of little teeth marks) pack all the shoes, am thankful that Petey doesn't wear shoes yet, time to pack lunch, my least favorite part, pat myself on the back for being so smart the day before at the grocery store, Lunchables were on sale so I went wild, find the lunch bag, realize I never took the icepack out last night to refreeze, Oh well, find a frozen water bottle in the freezer, throw that in the lunch box as an icepack, pack three Lunchables, make three bags of grapes (one sliced for Finn), make three bags of cookies, eat three cookies, pack one frozen breakfast sandwich for Tommy, check the Poptarts, no cracks, (Gavin won't eat them if they are broken), pack them knowing they will be broken by the time he opens up the lunch bag, make a bag of Cherrios for Finn, pack them, decide the lunch is not nutritious enough and pull out the watermelon to slice it, remember I just bought a melon baller and want to try it out, find the melon baller still in the package, open it, don't waste time washing it, slice the watermelon in half, drip watermelon juice down the front of the dishwasher, crap, no time to clean it, we have to go, use the melon baller, comment that the balls of melon aren't as perfect as I imagined they would turn out, try a new melon baller technique, call Gavin over to show him, wait while he tries a few, note that his look better than mine, make three bags of melon for the boys, still not completely happy with the results, remind myself that this is not A Food Network Challenge, just lunch for the boys, decide I want some melon for lunch too, quickly make a container for myself, put the watermelon away, start analyzing how I pack fun junky food that they love out of guilt for making them go to daycare, I stop analyzing but am still not happy with the nutritional value of their lunch, I throw some carrot sticks (nothing fun about carrots) into three little bags and fill three little containers with Kraft ranch, I remember that Gavin swears he throws up if he eats Kraft ranch, find some ranch dip from Mcdonald's in the bottom of the frige, pack that for Gavin, the cat jumps up on the counter eats Gavin's rejected ranch dip, think to myself, strange that a cat would like ranch, realize he is out of cat food, lunch bag won't close now, too much stuff, find another lunch bag (I have lots of them as I often "Shop" in the school's lost and found), look but can't find another ice pack, sort lunch into two bags, "must be refrigerated" and "should be refrigerated", feel guilty about not refreezing the icepack from yesterday, make a mental note to find all the ice packs, I know we own lots of them, put the lunch bags into the backpack, praise myself for remembering to refreeze Petey's formula cooler bag last night, pull it out of the freezer, look in the frige for the container of formula, find four open containers, remember they expire in 48 hours, try to figure out how I to tell which ones have been in there over 48 hours, open them all up, smell them, they all smell the same, give up and throw them all out, feel guilty about throwing out formula, feel guilty not recycling the bottles, feel even more guilty that Petey is getting formula at daycare and not the frozen breast milk, think about packing the frozen bags of breast milk, try to picture Miss Tammie having to thaw out fourteen little bags of milk just to get him through the day, decide to grab a new bottle of formula, put it in the cooler bag and add it to the backpack, make a mental note to scold Scott for not labeling the formula containers, tell Gavin and Tommy to start getting dressed, I go get dressed, no socks, search the dryer, finally find a pair, find my shoes, missing one orthotic, put them on anyway, Baby Petey is crying, pick him up, trip over baby toys, get him undressed, get peed on, change my scrub top, missing the wipes, realize I already packed them, unpack the wipes, put new diaper and new outfit on Petey, put him in his car seat, adjust the straps (he did grow overnight), he smiles at me, I melt and decide to pull him back out just let him nurse for a minute, sit down to nurse him, hear Finn crying, Assure Petey he will get to nurse tonight, put him back in his car seat, he cries, go to kitchen to find a bottle, we only own one (that's another blog), can't find it, remember I never brought it out of the van last night, go into the master closet (yet another blog) to get Finn, pick him up and bring him out to the van to find Petey's bottle, Find the bottle under my seat with old formula in it, bring it in and wash it, quickly unpack the formula and fill the bottle, repack the formula, give Petey the bottle and try to soothe him, prop his bottle, feel guilty about that while I undress Finn and change him, skip the rash cream because it's already packed and the rash looks really good, dress Finn, find Finn's sippy cup, wash and fill Finn's it, give it to him, remind Gavin to get dressed and shut off the TV, answer several questions about the Loch Ness monster (must have been watching a show about it) notice Tommy is missing, find him under my bed with the packed lunch bag eating the cheese out of all of the Lunchables, decide that he's probably the culprit behind the dirty dishes under my bed, pull him out, pull out the opened Lunchables, tell him he will be eating all three Lunchables for dinner tonight, get three new Lunchables from the frige, repack the lunch bag, notice Gavin is getting dressed, shut the TV off myself, answer some Bigfoot questions, send Gavin out to the van, bring Petey out to the van, go back in to get the big backpack, my purse and the van keys, Finn escapes outside, put the backpack, purse and keys in the van, chase Finn through the wet grass, capture him and put him in his car seat, remind Gavin that he is to babysit while I grab the rest of the stuff, go back inside, slip on something (this is the closest I have been to doing the splits, ever) realize it's my missing orthotic, put it in my pocket, turn the thermostat up to eighty three (trying to save money) yell for Tommy, feed the cat, look for Tommy, find him changing clothes, he picks out a pair of too small pants and a long sleeve shirt, no underwear, I decide to let him wear it knowing he has his swim trunks as a back up outfit, shoo Tommy out to the van, shut off lights, realize I didn't brush my teeth, brush them, realize I didn't put on any makeup, throw on some mascara, shut off the bathroom light, grab my cell phone and run out the door, snag my pants on a bike in the garage, small rip, think about changing my pants, remember there are no clean ones to change into, decide no one will notice, get in the van, do roll call, missing Gavin, see him in the rear view mirror rollerblading in the road, yell for him to get in the van, he gets in the van skates still on, shut the garage door, Tommy's mad, he wants his skates, open the garage door, unbuckle my seat belt, get out and look for the skates, find two matching skates for Tommy and decide a good mom would make them wear helmets and pads, find the helmets, look at my cell phone and note the time, decide that scars build character so I skip the pads, open the back of the van, throw it all in and close it, get back in my seat, put my seat belt on and try roll call again, all accounted for, close the garage door and start backing out, my gas light goes on, I sigh, continue backing out and start trying to figure out how I am going to pick up diapers, get the boys to daycare without getting a speeding ticket (I sort of have a bad record), explain to my supervisor why I can't always get to work on time and why she needs to be flexible with me and also why I forgot my employee badge again.

Once I get all of this done, I can take a deep breath, put a smile on my face and walk into the ICU to start my 12 hour shift.


This is why I am so thankful that we are staying home today. On stay home days, we wake up late, stay in our pj's as long as we want. No packing and no planning, lots of cuddling and nursing and feeling like a good mom.