Let me first say, there were ample amounts of moments where I literally had to force my hands over my mouth to keep quiet!

I witnessed a little anxiety along with slight anger rising up in me yesterday as I completed tasks on my to do list with four children. So what did my day look like exactly? Let me explain!

7:10am I woke up to a text message from my dear Step Son. He didn’t make it to practice this morning and had requested a ride to the gym at 6:50am. I did not receive this message because I was off in dream land. When I hurried to get ready to take him, he decided it was too late and didn’t want to go.

I also woke up with this huge painful bump on my left arm pit (What? Really who gets a bump on their arm pit?) I shrugged it off, oh well, it will eventually go away I decided. No complaining over a painful bump.

8:41am After closing my notebook after writing my blog vowing to not complain for the next 24 hours, I grabbed my phone to check the email.  My phone had completely froze as in it was not powering on at all. In a panic I began to push buttons to reset it, nothing, it was lifeless. I know it wasn’t dead because I had like a 86% charge when I woke that morning. I kind of chuckled to myself and proceeded to plug it up, of course it came on and I was able to check my email.

I spent the next 3 hours cleaning my home. We just returned from a week and a half vacation and I do not clean on VACATION! 😉 The house was very much out of order and needed lots of TLC on my part to nurse it back to a soft place to land for dear Husband when he would arrive home from work in the afternoon. During the course of these three hours I got to listen to my children complain about several things. I just kept going, kept positive, and focused on completing the house cleaning. While I was cleaning up the living room, my cat, Thaddeus, decided he wanted to act like a crazy monkey while I was vacuuming. He jumped on the table beside my couch and knocked over my new lamp. As it went crusading to the floor, I thought, NOOOOO, please, please don’t tell me it broke. He has never done this before. I knew right away it was a trap to get me to stumble. I quickly set the lamp up and proceded to straighten the metal part the lamp shade sits on. It was very crooked after the fall. The lamp shade was going to survive the fall. (yea!)

*I should have recorded this with a picture, but my camera was in the other room and of course taking a picture was the last thing on my mind!

I surived the complaints my children made over the lunch I prepared for them. “I didn’t want ham, I wanted turkey.” “Mom, she got more chips then me!” The list of complaints continued. I gritted my teeth, and smiled. After all it was just 12 o’clock, I got this I thought to myself! Piece of cake!

Then it happened, you know the realization of knowing you have to take your taking children into PUBLIC and removing your children from the confined walls of their fortress! If your a Mom then you know what I am talking about. Once you escape your safe fortress your children turn into the creatures you can’t quiet recognize in public settings, the Nice Mommy face comes on and they know they are about to get away with murder!!!

 Yes I was about to attempt the unthinkable………….Doctor appointment with four KIDS!

 

Dear Step Son had to get his Physical for the upcoming football season so we got to wait on him for about 45 minuets. Incase you are wondering when we left this building it was around 2:15pm. I got to literally listen to my 7 year old Son complain for the whole duration of the wait. “Mom, I am so bored. There is nothing to do here!” I am not exatruting when I say, this rant was repeated over, and over, and over again. The anxiety was about to start setting in. Could I sit here and watch them make the waiting room into their own personal circus ring? I mean a few fish in a tank can only occupy these crazies for so long! LOL Crazies because that is what they turn into when you take them to a waiting room! Although I am very proud of myself. I feel like I kept my composure and with the exception of my 7 year old, no one was embarrassed. We survived and no Mommy complaints. ZIIIING!

Our public outings where not complete after the doctor visit. Now it was time to tackle the Grocery Shopping for this week! Again, as a Mom, you know how well behaved your children will act while Mommy shops diligently and gracefully for groceries. (HA)

 

I believe this shopping experience lasted about 45 minuets. I did however have the lovely opportunity to have my dear Step Son step on my flip flop, causing me to almost face plant right smack on the floor, however I am thankful to add that there was no planting of my face that day. One flip flop went flying out infront of me, and my other foot got a boo boo where the flip flop thong rubs against your big two and that toe beside it, right in front of two Ladies having a conversation in the middle isle of Wal-Mart. Mean while I can hear something of the sounds of Dear Step Son yelling “OH flat tire, and Sorry!”  Needless to say I was embarrassed as I hurried to grab my shoe and place it back on my foot, so I could go hide in a hole somewhere. I Didn’t react to it, I was just ready to be checked out and headed home.

Parking lot, shoes, Bubble Gum. Yup you guessed it. Can you believe that on the way to the car I actually stepped in ABC Gum? LOL (Already been chewed) I remember ABC gum was a topic back in my childhood days. Sorry, getting off track focus Ash’Leigh! FOCUS! It just all seems so humors to me now! 🙂

 

When I took my first step and it stuck for a slight three seconds longer to the pavement, I knew I had felt that heavy sensation before. I had stepped in bubble gum. As you can notice from the image above, I didn’t just step in gum! No, this gum was apparently alive and decided to JUMP on my flip flop. It was a sticky mess. Immediately I just laughed. Not a little chuckle or a giggle, no this was like a Panic Laugh. I think I really wanted to cry but all I knew to do was laugh! Laugh hard, loud, rambunctiously. It had quickly become a very stressful day, but I REFUSED to give up on my challenge! I scrapped my shoe across the parking lot, hopped in my car, and drove home.

 

Here are my kids leaving the store, as you can see after the doctors appointment and grocery shopping trip they were as worn out as Momma was!

3 O’clock was our present living time. I gave a 60 minuet warning to my girls to finish cleaning the upstairs. Mind you this was a task that they had been working on all morning and still was not even half way complete!

4O’Clock Yea my Husband is home from a hard days work. This is where I needed to pull out the tape to tape my mouth shut because there is just something wired in a woman to want to spew every hardship she encountered that day with the children while Daddy was away. I smiled, grinned, kissed, and hugged him, keeping my lips super glued.

This took a lot out of me, but it was do able!

5pm Gym time. I encountered my friends that I haven’t seen in over a week and a half.  It was so nice to talk to each one of them. However, I picked up very quickly how hard it was not to complain about something that had happened over the trip, or anything else for that matter. We are quick and sneaky with our complaints. Heck, half the time I don’t even realize we are saying them. But again, I quickly focused on other things to talk about and kept it positive! No complaining from me! 🙂

7pm dinner and baths.

10pm BED!

I woke up this morning at 5:20am to make my husband a lunch for his day. I had to wake my smaller children up around 6:30 to take big brother to summer strength and conditioning practice. I prayed, prayed, and prayed God would give me the strength this morning to make it until 8:40am. It was quiet hectic early morning and so to my surprise, when my daughter used my kitchen towel to clean up some cat poop that some how made its way on her leg,

I lost it! Out it came.. “Why do you always get Momma’s good things dirty!! I use this to dry my hands off in the kitchen while I am preparing meals. NASTY!!”

How she even got cat poop on her leg is way beyond my reasoning at this point. I knew I had just complained out loud!

But guess what!?

It was 9:00am WHEW

I MADE IT!!!!

 

I will blog tomorrow about my reflection of this challenge. I have learned so much and I most certainly recommend everyone to take this challenge. If you took this challenge with me and were successful I want to know! If you weren’t successful I want to know too! Did you learn anything more about yourself or others?

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xOxO

-Leigh Leigh