happy Monday

I've had a few discussions with people lately about how superficially wonderful our lives seem on facebook & instagram...pictures of homebaked muffins and happy children.  I'm guilty of this as well because hey, who wants to hear that I mopped the floor and scrubbed toilets?  Baking muffins just seems more sharing-friendly.    Who wants to see pictures of my kids glued to the tv/ipod/laptop?  A cute picture of them smiling is so much nicer!  I would hope all of my friends know when I post these happy and fun updates that I'm sharing the fun side of life and I'm not trying to portray that I live my life 100% in that happy place.  But just to be sure here's a glimpse into my morning from today - an average morning in this house.

* I hit snooze on my alarm 4 times (Jeff often asks why don't I set the alarm for the time I will get up but I just don't know if I can physically get out of bed now without hitting snooze 4 times)
* woke up to Kyle and Jillian both dressed and fed (see, I'm creating self-sufficient children, that's a good life skill for them!)
* tried to wake up the 4-almost-5 year old but she grunted at me and rolled over (can't imagine where she gets that from?)...left her in bed to go make lunches and figured she'd get up at some point
* at some point while making lunches I yelled at Jillian twice - first time because I had to ask her several times to turn off the tv (yes, my kids watch tv in the morning).  Second time was unneccesary I'll admit...she insists on saying "I did that already" when I remind Kyle to do something and I find it annoying so I yelled at her
* Kyle needs to take supplies into school to make an airplane, I had told him I'd go to the dollar store for a metre long stick yesterday but did not (did however spend the morning at a birthday party and the afternoon at the farm for Jillian's riding lesson so it's not like I was just hanging out on the couch).
* I tried to pawn off some other materials but he found fault with all of them.  I cannot go to the store this morning and drop it off at school because I'm babysitting a cute one year old for a friend this morning...Kyle did take in some other long sticks I found and said he'll try to make it work
* made lunches, including leftovers for Jillian in her thermos since she really does not like sandwiches (that goes in the plus column, go me)
* while making the lunches I had to ignore screams of help from Leah because Kyle and Jillian needed to get out the door to make the bus on time (hmmm, this is where getting up earlier to make lunches ahead of time rather than 5 minutes before the bus comes would be beneficial...)
* Kyle and Jillian out the door on time WITH lunches and supplies to make an airplane
* tried to dress Leah but she was crying about wearing the snowman shirt so I found a clean dress and leggings (a miracle considering how far behind on laundry I am) which made her happy, she told me "I'll wear the snowman shirt another day when I'll be playing in the snow", well okay then.
* while packing Leah's backpack she reminded me we did not read her levelled reading book (to make this even worse we've had it at home for a week because she was sick last week), I told her I forgot but it's okay because we read other books (she seemed skeptical...)
* adorable one year old has showed up to play with me for the morning and keep me occupied, he's happily digging into the duplo lego as I finish typing this up and doing really well considering he's never been to my house before, looks like we'll have a fun morning together (and I might be able to make a dent in the mountain of laundry if he continues to be this good at keeping himself occupied with lego for a few minutes at a time)

So I won't be up for mother-of-the-year award any time soon but the kids did all get to school on time with lunches and art supplies, I consider that a win for a Monday morning.

I'll finish with a little thing that gave me a chuckle this morning...I came down to see Kyle had added a word to my scrabble magnet board, can you guess which word is Kyle's?