The Waiting List.....

I just want to know this one thing. Does anybody realize that as a mother of five youngsters, it is imperative for her to eat on occasion???

This is what I'm finding out:

That before I can sit down to enjoy my 'hot' cup of coffee that I've now nuked for the seventeenth time and part of a piece of toast that was once warm and now cold and hard that I haven't had to share 'bites' with someone.....

I must get my eleven month old situated in her high chair with something to nibble on (a decoy since she has decided she likes sitting on my lap and sharing above-mentioned toast).

I must get up every two seconds to settle a squabble, change poopy diapers at various intervals because they are NOT in unison, get drinks, snacks and kiss boo boo's.

I must make 'second' breakfast for my three year old who says he needs more food.

I must also wear a pathway on the floor between the kitchen and livingroom, putting the TV back on the proper channel or lowering the volume to a normal level since Kara has found buttons she loves to push which totally upsets certain other little people. How upsetting it can be when your program gets switched right when you are about to find out if Swiper swipes something that Dora needs? That is very disturbing indeed!

And then there is dinner:

There is the endless, I need a dwink.

Can you get me.....?????

I need a different fork.

I need my food cut up and ranch or ketchup put in just the right spot.

Find something for Kara to eat.

And then finally when everyone is happily eating, I turn around to sit at our table and glance over at everyone realizing once again that we must eat in rotation since there isn't enough seats for everyone. I, being the waitress, have lost my window of opportunity to find a seat in the process of accomplishing all that must be done before I can partake of the 'hot' food. I have been bumped to the 'waiting' list.

I use to think that sitting down as a family at dinner time was of utmost importance but now that I'm looking at it from this perspective, I find that once a couple kids finish their dinner, it's of utmost importance for them to go play......

....just so I can sit (instead of stand) and enjoy my luke warm meal while they are preoccupied and not needing me for a brief moment in time. It's called survival.