It's Later

The last two days I have been determined to do everything we had planned. In fact, I have been just as determined that we will accomplish everything on our list as our children have been determined that we won't.

Our children labor under the delusion these days that time in infinite. There is always plenty of time to "get around to it." Or to "get it finished after this." Or, my personal favorite,"I was just relaxing mom! Don't worry, I'll do it later." When precisely does it actually become later?

I decided today that later occurred at exactly 2:45 pm. At this point, Scott had left for a shift in the ER and I was surrounded by children who had assured me "later" was coming. The items still remaining on our list of things to do was as follows:

school work for 7 children

piano practice for 3 children

clean 2.5 bathrooms

put clean sheets into dryer so 7 beds could be remade

bake 15 loaves of bread plus one pizza crust

clean 1 kitchen

replace 2 electrical outlets

eat dinner & complete dishes in order to start dishwasher

vacuum both upstairs and downstairs

steam mop kitchen floor

bathe Elias and Abigail

I gathered our wee and not-so-wee charges and announced it was officially later and that bedtime would not occur until all of the list above was completed. The dumbstruck looks on the faces of Shelby and Dawson were particularly intense as they asked my all-time favorite question on days such as today: "How are we supposed to do all that?"

I sit here at 10:57 pm in order to write that we did manage to accomplish everything on the list. And the kids did all agree that they would like to use their time a little wiser from now on. I know that only time will tell if these last two days of stick-to-it-ivness have really made a difference in our family's perception of time and its limitations. But for tonight, I will move about in a cloud of naiveness, assuming that I have managed to instill in our children the important truth that time is precious. There is always a way to spin into positive.