Going to school with little kids is SO hard! Ack!
In a household with young kids, you can't ever find anything. A pen? Never. Maybe a broken crayon. Clean paper, that hasn't been colored on, painted on, crumpled up, or covered in who-knows-what? Nice try. Your school books? Better just hope you eventually find them in one piece (especially when 1 is a library book). Let's say by some miracle that you do find all of the above. It might last 2 minutes. Until they see it. Then the grabbing and whining starts. So just as you're finally sitting down to attempt some productivity, you are forced to find 2 more of everything -- 2 more writing utensils, 2 more notebooks (will a piece of paper suffice? Ha!), and 2 more books (that you better not care about, because chances are they're getting the same treatment as the paper described above). So you somehow magically find it all -- 3 of everything. You settle in and peace may briefly tease you. Until they begin fighting over all of the writing utensils, notebooks, and books. When you do get a few minutes to read (and you better be darn good at reading with the TV on, two loud children, barking dogs, the dryer, obnoxious toys, etc.) and begin taking some notes, you will suddenly be needed again. For whatever. Food. Water. Diaper change. A booger. A question. Something out of reach. Entertainment. An expedition. And then you think hey, maybe getting them out of the house to say, the park, might buy you some time to actually read. You load up your stuff and head out, only to get there and remember that you can't take your eyes off them for 2 seconds. You lose your place repeatedly as either you throw the book as you run to rescue a kid that's about to fall face first off the playground equipment, or your book gets yanked and thrown by said kid. You call it quits after reading the same paragraph 6 times and realize you still don't know what it said. You finally convince them to head back home, where you settle in again. And notice that your newly written notes are becoming victim to the paper-destructors you, yourself, have created. After all of this effort, you realize you've read about 2 pages. And comprehend none of it, because the longest stint of actual reading you've been able to do has probably maxed at 2 minutes. Sure, you can lock yourself in a room away from the kids. They will find you. Oh, they'll find you and they'll get to you. They'll knock, they'll yell, they'll stick things under the door. They'll do everything they can to get you to open it. And then you become their victim again. Sit at the computer? They'll climb on your lap. They'll steal the mouse. They'll sit in from of the monitor. They'll bang on the keyboard as you attempt to eloquently write whatever remotely sensible thing you can make up with your sleep-deprived brain, within this chaos with the little you've read. Then you'll go to class and attempt to hide when questions are asked about all those chapters you didn't read, pipe in when the 2 pages you did read are finally applicable (and pray you don't sound completely insane), and smile when your classmate says "You look tired."
The notes I just began a couple hours ago are already written on, crumpled, torn, and smeared with mandarin orange syrup. But alas, since I began reading at 5:30pm when I got home and enjoyed a short time with a sleeping child and an unpresent child (Hayden and Loren weren't home yet) and continued through all the happenings until now, 8:30pm, I have conquered 25 whole pages. Now, to just finish over 200 more, attend 4 more classes, conduct 2 interviews, revise a paper, and write 2 new papers...
This is my shout out to any mother who has or is attending school. And yes, I'm focusing on mothers because in the 3 hours that I've attempted to read, my kids have been attached to me like cling-ons even though Loren has been home the entire time. No matter what I do, no matter how evidently boring it is, it always trumps dad. So sorry student dads, I'm not giving as much sympathy (although I'll still give you a shout out -- I'll really give a shout out to any student). ;)
