A Few Hours in My Shoes
It is not even 10am and already five people have told me what a pretty baby I have! Where have I been you might ask…A baby boutique, children’s museum maybe? Nope. I am at Panera Bread. They have free wi-fi and I have my laptop. (Ok, …make it six! Another person just stopped by to tell me what a cute baby Teresa is!) Due to Nick’s extremely generous heart and goodness to me, I have been able to come here almost weekly now ever since school started. While most SAHMoms get their R & R during the weekday hours of 8:30am-3:00pm, I am homeschooling my two oldest, school age children. (See inset.) But that’s not all. I have five kids. The rest of them are either running/crawling around the house, sitting on my lap, sitting on someone else’s lap, playing dress-up, or being dressed up (granted on some days the material used may be toilet paper, but that’s another story!..),
Have you checked out this site? : mom2my6pack/blogspot.com. Otherwise known as “The Auction Lady”, Dawn’s blog is hilarious and her chronicles of life with six kids bears a crazy resemblance to mine. I read her blog with my head nodding up and down so much so that my kids thought I developed a new involuntary head movement to entertain them. She is also a fellow Chicagoan – so kudos! Life in Chicago with kids is cool!
My husband once proclaimed, “Moms of the world – Unite!” (Unfortunately, the recipient of his enthusiastic message did not feel the same way and while he went away somewhat puzzled/dejected, no less worn for the wear. …Later this same woman’s husband praised my farmhand skills and chainsawing ability, saying to my husband, “You’ve got a real mountain woman there!”). Any hoo…
Now, back to the world of moms…When the most frequently words spoken in our vocabulary are “peanut butter and jelly” and “don’t forget to flush”, you start to see similarities between us. We are kindred. As a much more experienced than I mom of five kids at the time told me after my oldest son was born, “Congratulations on the birth of your baby. Don’t cha’ just feel like you’ve joined a club???” I did. And I knew EXACTLY what she was talking about. It’s something you cannot describe to someone who hasn’t experienced it before. they won’t get it until they do it themself.
Those knowing smiles at the grocery store, church, wherever – they are the smiles of moms connecting. Usually they look something like this: (insert picture). It is the look that says, “I, too, have not showered yet (even though it is almost noon), but I had to run out and get my poor dear some 100% natural no preservatives or sugar added Juicy Juice for his/her sore throat which I hope after consuming he/she will experience a mini-nirvana and discontinue calling my name once every 360 seconds. (Hmmm…maybe they do feel well enough to have been sent to school???…) So never mind me the frazzled state of my mind, and the fact that I just accidentally drove my shopping cart over my own big toe and almost the elderly woman next to me– I am doing the most important job on earth and I…(stutter), I(stutter), I AM sooooooooo glad you know what I’m talking about without even saying a word.”
By the way, people tell me all the time that it must drive me crazy to HAVE to take care of ALL those children! While it wouldn’t be honest of me to say that I am never driven to the brink of insanity, for the most part, I’m not. I have all these kids because I always dreamed of filling up my house some day with lots of kids, and simply beause it’s fun! I can’t think of anything else I would RATHER do! Working in the social work field with a focus on child development could have never prepared me for the adventures I get on a daily basis today. So much more exciting!
Today in mass, Father talked about how he talks to his guardian angel. Catholics have been taught that we all have a guardian angel whose main job is to keep us out of trouble and get us to heaven. My guardian angel may very well be keeping me away from too much dark chocolate (my demise – CRS Fair Trade is THE BEST kind), although I know there are many other things he/she does that I am not aware of. Father even said give your angel a name. His is David because he likes the name David. I’m not sure what mine is, but back when I was in college, I used to call my angel “Cecilia”. Patroness of music. Father said that his angel works like St. Anthony for him. What’s lost becomes found with a little whisper to his angel. I had a similar experience the other day.
Although I wasn’t looking for lost things, I was hoping for new ones. I have been thinking about buying shoes for fall/winter. I know most people would just go out and buy them, but not me. I go online & “window shop” and merely think about what I want because I do not want to take all the kids to the store if I can help it. Not that my precious treasures would misbehave…NO!…but I would probably leave that store with much more than I intended on buying if I had just gone by myself. Five nights ago, I looked at shoes on Amazon.com and thought of what kind of cute, but comfy & practical shoes I could purchase for $50 or less. (I can’t conceive spending much more than that for shoes although I realize most good shoes are probably around this amount.) I also could not conceive of the practical logistics in obtaining such shoes, so I stopped thinking. It was time for bed and I was sleepy. So I closed the laptop, say a prayer and went to sleep. Yesterday morning, I got a call from my neighbor asking what my shoe size is. I told her I’m a size seven. She said she’d be right over. Over she came and brought the most beautiful assortment of name brand shoes (Ann Taylor, Kenneth Cole, Joan and David, and some French name that is super expensive), seven pairs in all! I now am the proud owner of a pair of trendy ankle boots, an elegant pair of heels for a night out with Nick, and several practical comfy flats. Amazing how God works! People will tell me I’m nutty for thinking this is more than a coincidence, but I say GET REAL! Even the hairs on your head have been counted by the Lord of Hosts! I probably don’t need all seven pairs, so perhaps I can sell the extras on Ebay and buy a gift for my husband or kids.
That’s all for now. My brain has done its work for today.
