Once upon a time, a young mother gave birth to her fourth child two weeks before school started. She had a goal to keep her house in order for those two weeks, and just knew that when school started, life would be a breeze.
The night before school started, she gave haircuts, laid out new clothes that the kids were excited to wear, and hung their backpacks on their hooks.
In the morning, the kids came upstairs, dressed and ready for the day, and ready to read scriptures as a family. This young mother then made a nice scrambled egg breakfast with a glass of juice and a piece of whole wheat toast on the side.
While the kids ate, the mother got dressed in her pre-baby plaid shorts (since she was already back to her pre-pregnancy weight) and used an expensive flat-iron to straighten her freshly washed hair.
After breakfast, the kids brushed their teeth, put their toothbrushes away, and happily lined up to take their "first day of school pictures" which turned out so well she decided to have them blown up to an 8x10 size to hang on the wall. The baby slept the whole time.
While the older two kids were gone for the day, this mother had big plans. She made back to school cupcakes with mini chalkboards, an apple, and a cute little piece of chalk made out of a tic tac. It was difficult between feeding the new baby, and rotating loads of laundry, but the image of sitting down with her children and talking about their first day kept her going.
When she finished the cupcakes, she somehow managed to fold laundry, take a nap, and play a game with the 5 year old since he was starting Kindergarten the following week and it was their last chance to have time together.
The older kids finally arrived home, hung up their backpacks, and shared their day with her over cupcakes and milk. After feeding the dog, practicing their piano, and tidying up their rooms, they played video games while the mother made a wonderful dinner so they could sit around the table as a family and share their day with Dad when he arrived home from work.
By the end of the day, the mother was exhausted. She looked around at all the dirty dishes, and the crumbs on the floor and wanted to cry. Just then, some music started playing in the background, and all the dishes began to sing and dance and put themselves in the dishwasher! The mop danced around the room while fairy dust sparkled in the air, and the mother drifted off to sleep, dreaming about the wonderful day she would have tomorrow.
And they all lived happily ever after.
And now for the real story:
Once upon a time, a young mother gave birth to her fourth child two weeks before school started. She had a goal to keep her house in order for those two weeks, and just knew that when school started, life would be a breeze.
The night before school started, she was ever so grateful that Grandma had cut the kids' hair a couple weeks ago, since they had to spend the evening cleaning out their backpacks from last year. Luckily, they didn't find any rotten fruit or moldy sandwiches. She told the kids to lay out their clothes, and when she saw that one of them was going to wear a stupid T-shirt that portrayed pizza as the only food group, she played her "Mom card" and made them wear stupid shirts with collars.
In the morning, the kids came upstairs, coughing all the way (apparently they finally caught the cold that everyone in town has), and the baby needed to eat during family scripture study. Instead of making a nice scrambled egg breakfast, Mom burped the baby while the kids ate the sugary chocolate cereal that Dad picked out last week, and left a few wet "krispies" in each bowl to harden like cement.
When the baby was happy, the mother was thrilled to get dressed in her pre-baby plaid shorts (she was amazingly already back to her pre-pregnancy weight, and even though none of her other pants fit yet, the shorts did!). It made up for the fact that she didn't get a shower, and didn't have time to do her hair.
After breakfast, the kids announced that they were out of toothpaste, so they had to use Mom and Dad's toothpaste. Mom didn't care because she considered the morning (and the entire summer) a success, just because they knew what color their toothbrushes were.
They really needed to leave to get to school, but the mom herded the kids outside to take pictures, yelling the entire time that they needed to make themselves laugh so that their smiles wouldn't look so constipated.
While the older two kids were gone for the day, this mother had big plans. She had a few errands to run, and she had seen some cute back to school cupcakes with mini chalkboards, an apple, and a little piece of chalk that she wanted to make for after-school snack.
The errands turned out to be an all-day event. First she took the 5 year old to Kindergarten testing (10 minutes late because she was feeding the baby, and because the front door of the school is as far from the Kindergarten class as it can possibly be). Next they went to the "Courthouse/DMV/USU extension/Workforce Services/Sherriff's Office/Health Department/WIC office" building to turn in some paperwork. She realized while filling out the info for the baby's birth certificate that she needed to go to the store and get cash to pay for it, as well as the one dollar she owed the USU extension office for the soccer season that was starting that week. She left the paperwork, and lugged the baby in the carseat back up the stairs and out to the car, and then into the store, where the 5 year old wanted to eat lunch because he was starving. After the 5 year old had finished off his bag of chips without touching his pizza, the mom got a to-go box, and her cash, and after showing the new baby to three or four people who wanted a peek, she went back to the "Courthouse/DMV/USU extension/Workforce Services/Sherriff's Office/Health Department/WIC office" building, where she discovered that both of the Health Department employees, as well as the USU extension ladies, had gone to lunch. Her uterus and sciatic nerve were beginning to tell her that it was time to rest, but she kept plugging along anyway, resolving to return that afternoon to finish her errands (but she forgot).
There obviously wasn't time to make the cupcakes, or fold the laundry, or take a nap, but she decided that it didn't really matter because her kids probably didn't even know what a chalkboard was, since they have SmartBoards in their classrooms, and instead she would make cookies with the 5 year old, since it was one of their last chances to do something together before he started school in a week. They started the cookies, but within minutes the 5 year old decided he'd rather play video games, so the Mom finished them herself.
The older kids arrived home, and since the cookies were not quite finished, they dropped their backpacks and shoes on the floor and ran downstairs to watch their brother play Wii. The mom asked how their day was, and they answered, "Fine". The mother told them to feed the dog, practice their piano, and clean their rooms, but she was too tired to enforce it, and couldn't really bear the thought of listening to their piano lesson, so they played on the computer instead (and accidentally unplugged the router so the Internet stopped working). Since their cousin was coming over to use the Internet that night, the mother spent the next half an hour trying to figure out why the router wasn't working, and just when she fixed the problem, she got a call reminding her of Pack meeting at the swimming pool that night.
In lieu of dinner, she gave one kid the leftover pizza from the 5 year old's lunch, and two kids had yet another bowl of chocolatey sugary cereal, before they rushed off to pack meeting at the pool. Since the Dad was still at work, and the Mom couldn't get into the pool so soon after a new baby, she sat on the sidelines and did her best to watch three kids (in two different pools) who don't know how to swim. Her excitement at fitting into her pre-baby shorts was deflated when she saw the other cute young mom's in their size 2 swimsuits, trendy sunglasses, and flat-ironed hair and she realized that she was just an overweight girl in plaid shorts who was wearing a ponytail because she still hadn't gotten a shower.
By the end of the day, the mother was exhausted. She looked around at all the dirty dishes, and the crumbs on the floor and wanted to cry. Instead she went to bed, while her husband stayed up until 2 AM with the baby. When she got up in the night to feed the little one, all the errands and carrying that carseat had caught up with her and she could barely walk.
Thankfully, her husband let her sleep in, and she vaguely remembered waving goodbye to her children (from her bed) on their second day of school.
The mother slept in, fed the baby, and felt much better after blogging about her day. She was just about to take a shower when she noticed the time and realized that since it was Friday, the kids would be home early.
A few minutes later, they walked in the door, dropped their backpacks, and asked "What's for lunch?"
And the mother realized they were out of bread.
So the kids had leftover cookies for lunch and they all lived happily ever after.
The boys each have a football marker that starts on the 50 yard line. Their regular chores, (which are homework, piano, feed dog, clean room, and stack wood) are worth 10 yards each. When they get a touchdown, they get 30 minutes of computer or Wii time. 
Todd had steak. The next day I had grilled chicken with artichoke and sun-dried tomato sauce over penne pasta. It was better than the meal I had at Applebee's on Saturday night!
