Back to Normal

Ahhh, the holidays are over! Things can finally get back to normal around here, whatever that means.
Today it meant school's back in, waking kids up, throwing together prepackaged crap in the lunchboxes, vetoeing clothing selections. It meant trying to find the perfect bribe to convince Emma to go to school today, we finally agreed to get a chocolate shake when I picked her up. Then trying to get her fed, clothed, hair and teeth brushed in a timely manner which was not happening until my neighbor called to ask me if I could take her son to school. Taber, my knight in shining armor for the day, the spark behind the fastest I have ever seen Emma move in the morning. I might need to take him to school everyday!
Normal today meant having to go to Alli and Abby's schools to provide them with yet more paperwork to prove that we actually reside at our address, and that my kids should be going to their schools. I am pretty sure they will request a urine sample from me next! It meant folding the 2 loads of laundry left over in the baskets, and washing 3 more loads. It meant doing 2 loads of dishes, and still having to handwash items that didn't fit. It meant yelling at Kathryn numerous times to stop eating the dog's food, stop drinking the dog's water, put your clothes back on, give me that marker, stop jumping on the bed, and the list goes on... Which always leads to an impromptu outing, today being Barnes and Noble. We had just missed storytime but still had the pleasure of fighting with all the other toddlers at the train table. I got my book club selection, and Kathryn picked a book from the bargain bin.
Hoping the diversion was long enough, back to the house where normal meant taking on another overwhelming project. This one being getting all the girls' clothes into the correct dressers from moving all the furniture around during the painting extravaganza. Which led to the task of sorting out clothes that are too small and either storing them or passing them on. Which means this project will take me a week. But keep in mind I do have four girls, and you did see my laundry!
It meant arguing with Kathryn when she insisted that they are dinosaurs in her new book, not dragons. And that the dumpsters at Emma's school are doghouses, and whether her bear is brown or yellow. Why do I bother??
It meant that when we went to get the shake at McDonalds, the shake machine was broken. I'm adding that to my lawsuit as well.
It meant avoiding the grocery store once again because it's raining, and I don't shop in the rain, unless it's the mall.
Normal means signing papers, checking homework, refereeing over the remote control, that at least one kid has some complaint about what I have cooked for dinner.(Stroganoff tonight, very yummy, as long as you don't ask Alli.) It means undoing all the hair and clothes that I worked so hard on in the morning!
And now it means playing around on the computer, when I should be working on my overwhelming clothing project. But I am procrastinating which is pretty normal.
But mostly it means there are too many things to do, and not enough time to do them, and that is definitely NORMAL here!!