This Time

So I tell myself that This Time, I will get up early and do all the Mother things that I read other mothers are doing for their kids. Making healthy nutritious breakfasts, spending hours doing school with each child while baking bread and washing clothes at the same time in a sparkling clean house. Then baking cookies and delectable cakes in the afternoon while listening to them practice their piano and violin. And to end it all we cook dinner together, read the Bible and have story time before bed. This Time.
 Well that didn't work out, it looked more like this:
Got up, girls are playing with their dolls, still in pajamas because Mama was asleep and didn't wake up first. Mama says "get dressed and let's get started with school" to be met with youngest daughter flopping on the floor yelling "why??? I don't want to go anywhere today!" Because usually we are always running out the door to do poorly planned activities or errands. Ok, I need to plan more, I say mentally to myself as I yell going down the hall to the kitchen "because you are supposed to get dressed every day, its a rule!" and hear from my little mouthpiece "but we are homeschooled, we are supposed to be in our night clothes all day!". Now where did she get that idea from? I get dressed without fail as soon as I get up in the morning (or mid morning) and usually tell them to get dressed too. Oh well, off to be perfect Homeschool Mom. I go in the kitchen, which is a mess because no one cleaned it the night before and I had gone to be with a migraine while everyone watched tv. The kids father keeps cable because it is a good babysitter when I have a marathon migraine and he is shrimping and can't take them shopping or out to eat. We impart such good morals and principals around here you see. So I clean the kitchen while getting the ingredients for a homemade pancake breakfast. I am out of instant mix, and out of half the ingredients for my scratch recipe. Ok, bananas with peanut butter it is. Oop, out of bananas, so its noodles and sauce for breakfast. Oh well it is almost lunchtime anyway and they like that for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Homemade nutritious breakfast fail.
 But school I can conquer. The girls are dressed, but their hair is a mess and I doubt they brushed their teeth and the son is in the garage doing whatever because he is in college and doesn't have any classes right now, so annoying me is his top objective. Just kidding. Not really. Just his presence puts a kink in my plans because he wants me to go to some hardware store and help him pick out stain while the girls want to play outside because he is in the garage. Can you see where I am going here? I yell, in all sweetness of course "go do your school, NOW" so they hightail it to their desks in the newly rearranged school room that is all Feng Sui now or something like that, and should be able to say their times tables backwards and forwards.
THEN it happens. I stop to check my email. An hour later I come up out of that black hole of the internet and  I realize that no one has bothered me. So I spring up to see the sauce dried and almost burnt, the girls playing with their dolls and the son playing frisbee with the dog. Hmmm. School fail.
Well, we will do better tomorrow when I get up at 7am but for now I have to go the grocery store and as I better not go hungry let's stop for sushi and Japanese. I'll cook a great dinner tomorrow with home made bread because this time I forgot to put the ingredients in the bread maker. Next time I will be a better Homeschool Mom making nutritious meals and teaching deep theological mysteries to my kids, but for today I will load them in the car and go all over town, telling them stories of my life between singing at the top of our lungs to Christian rock and playing in parks that I can't stand to pass by without letting them play on the playground or letting the hairy dog run free in some woods. And I will hold them in my arms while I get a latte and smile while I show them a new vegetable in the market or read a new recipe at the bookstore my son wants to stop in and then we will read what the statue in the square is famous for while we get a cupcake from a little hole in the wall store. This Time, I will just be me with my kids and watch them smile and listen when my son says "I want the faith you have Mama" because we talk about Jesus all day. This Time is precious to me.