Helper No More

The truth is we, as a family, will be perfectly fine without a helper after our move. It will be more work for me undoubtably. I will need to cut back my extra curricular activities like helping in the classroom, 3 room mom jobs, 2 Cub Scout jobs and helping others do their various projects and things. The kids as well will need to cut back their extra curricular gigs to a minimum because instead of dropping off and picking them up I will need to be home cooking dinner so we eat on time and this get to bed on time because that starts the mornings out better.

The thing we will miss when we lose the extra help is the level of excellence. The attention to detail. The perks. At the close of each day we have scriptures and prayer with the kids then Brian and I are free to do our stuff. Tonight Gina and Brian are both gone and I out everyone to bed and returned to the kitchen to work another hour cleaning dishes, wiping the table, taking out the trash and putting away the food. And I just didn't have the energy anymore to think of picking up the toys and to tidy the living room like I would usually do.

Dinner prep time was a joke. Ashlyn missed her real nap because I wasn't home for her to sleep in her bed and Gina wasn't here so I couldn't leave her here. Instead she snoozed for 45 minutes in the car while I drove a bit and picked up Jacob and Anderson from school. It wasn't long enough. Then this afternoon I had to tear apart the entire office to get the enormous three piece desk out to sell. So instead of preping the food for dinner I was in the office. I had a neighbor with the kids while I drove it to the new house and by the time I got back home and the kids back at the house it was nearly 5:30.

Ashlyn was screaming because she was tired and hungry and wouldn't let me move about the kitchen to cook. Jacob was mad that he couldn't have the candy Jennifer had given him earlier. Ben got little things wrong on nearly every math problem even though I could tell he was getting the main idea he was sloppy and. It watching the details - which of course is completely my fault and gives him just cause to yell at me. He wouldn't listen to me explain but just said he can't do it.

Between all the anger and then the time puts and fighting between Maddie and Jacob dinner made it to the table at 7:05pm. That's 5 min past our ideal bedtime. And of course, even though it was a special request dinner from Ben and Maddie, Jacob hated it. I made our traditional April Fool's Day dinner. Meatballs and mashed potatoes that look like cupcake and frosting. With set up jello in their cups to "drink." I didn't get a single vegetable or anything else made. 

One highlight of the night though was watching Ashlyn try to eat stuff. She took one bite of the bright green mashed potato "frosting" and put the cupcake right back on the plate. She wanted the "juice" instead. It was hilarious to watch her try and try to tip the cup and for the juice to run down into her mouth. She sucked and slurped and made noises that should have helped but nothing did. Finally she put the cup back down on the get table and looked at it. And poked it. And when it bounced back she started to giggle. Then she looked around at Jacob and Ben who were using spoons in their cups. Then she tried again to drink it by tipping the cup before she grabbed a spoon and dug in.

It was a fun, fun night at the dinner table for sure. But that's all that was easy. Dinner was late, bedtime was late, everyone was mad, I was not able to sit and get kids with homework without being distracted by my kitchen duties and the time ticking by so quickly as Ashlyn got more and more upset.

We will also miss that we always have laundry that magically appears in neatly folded baskets in our rooms. The toilets are always clean. The floors get swept and mopped on a regular, consistent basis and I mean the whole floor, not just the bad spots I spot clean when they get a spill. We will miss the clean windows, the lack of dust on our shelves, the grocery shopping that is always done and the dishes being washed at least very hour. It seems there isn't ever a dish in the sink. It's heavenly. Gina has been amazing.

The best part of it all though is the gift it was to enjoy Ashlyn as a baby. I didn't have that kind of freedom with any of my other kids. There was just too much going on to enjoy them. It was a blessing to have Gina with us so I could soak in every moment with my little lady in these precious two years.

Overall I have decided after the three weeks without Gina in December and the three days without Gina and Brian this week I think we will be in survival mode again where everything is done "fine" and nothing really hits the "excellence" state. That's what Gina gave our family. The time to live excellently. We will miss her and her service that allowed us to shift our focus to our children. It's been an immense blessing to see my children with eyes that aren't quite so tired all the time.