Venting--don't read it

Last week, my Pastor J told us to write down all of the things we do and how much time we spend on them. I think the point was to decide whether or not doing those things is interfering with our passion for Jesus. Ok, like I'm going to time how long it took me to go switch out the laundry 10 times today between schooling the kids, changing the diapers (potty training on back burner), cooking meals while cleaning the kitchen---need I go on? It's not that I don't have free time at all. Obviously, if I'm blogging, I have a free moment. It's just that I can't record how much time it take me to do those things because I'm doing a bunch of things at once. In an average day I : (I don't actually expect you to read all of this.)

• get myself dressed (unless I slept in my workout clothes to save time)
• read my Bible and pray (on the rare occasion that I get up early enough and the devil forgets to wake up Iz to disturb me)
• prepare school worksheets and Bible lesson
• pour 2 sippy cups and make breakfast
• start laundry while breakfast is cooking
• have a cup of tea
• get 3 kids up (if they aren't already), dress 2 of them and get them to eat and do their chores
• administer vitamins
• clean kitchen, sweep or mop the kitchen floor
• pour more sippy cups
• brush 3 sets of teeth, comb Z's hair
• teach 4 children, answer their questions, help with their worksheets, read them books, etc
• help Z with potty business
• change 4-5 diapers and try to get Iz to go to the potty instead of changing diapers, which by the way is actually more work
• switch out the laundry, start another load
• prepare lunch for 5 people and pour more cups of juice
• clean the kitchen again
• get ready to leave the house, including 3 sets of shoes, jackets, sippy cups, water (for myself), find keys, purse, headphones, diaperbag, etc.
• run an errand (if I have to) and go to the gym, with 4 kids in tow, 2 of whom I still have to do the carseat belts (2-3 days a week--one day we go to a home school co-op instead)
• workout and return the 4 kids to the house--don't forget the diaperbag!
• put Iz down for a nap--no small task!
• switch out the laundry, start another load and start folding
• take a bath and get dressed
• make a cup of coffee and drink it, but not before it gets cold because I'm doing 5 other things at the same time
• pick up a zillion things that people have left around the house and carry it to the place it actually belongs
• do more school with the kids
• switch out the laundry, start another load and hang clothes up
• try to get the children to do their chores
• stop the screaming, fighting and crying
• switch out laundry, hang up more clothes, fold more clothes, take clothes to their proper places
• pour 8 more cups of juice and milk
• check email an blogs
• talk to the neighbor
• oversee the comings and goings of my own older children after school hours, in addition to up to 4 or so neighbor kids, not to mention cleaning up after them
• anyone tired, yet?
• clean the bathroom (there are 3 of them)
• organize something that somebody has messed up
• clean up school mess
• other weekly chores
• discipline children
• cook dinner for 6 people, while fighting off the mobs of children trying to "help" and clean the kitchen at the same time because somebody got something to eat since lunch
• switch out the laundry one more time
• make coffee and gather some leftovers for A to take to work
• clean up some giant mess somebody made--today it was muffins all over the carpet
• clean the kitchen again and start the dishwasher this time
• give 2 children baths, convince 2 that they actually need one, get 2 children dressed for bed and brush their teeth, comb Z's hair again
• put the children to bed
• oh my, when soccer starts, that will be another thing to do--drive back and forth from soccer--doing the carseat belts, lifting the 35 lb toddler in and out of the car.
• Now that the children are in bed, I've got to figure out what I haven't done and do it now, but I'm too tired
• I must be leaving something out. That doesn't seem like everything.

I don't really like that question. You know, it's easier to ignore these kinds of things if you aren't one of only 6 adults there. In a larger church, I'd ignore it and assume it was for someone else. In a setting this small, I know he's going to ask for it next week.

If I lack passion, it's because I'm tired. "A man works from dawn 'till the setting of the sun, but a mother's work is never done."

I guess I'd better go see what the kids destroyed while I was writing this.