I suck at this Mom thing.

Summer is here. A time for joyous freedom. I don't have to get a kid ready for school and bedtimes can fall by the wayside. It should be fun! It should be liberating! It should be relaxing. Well, it isn't. I suck at it. My kids just want to watch movies all day. And I don't really care because I want to sit at the computer all day. It really is sad and pathetic how boring I have become.

I attempted to start a chore chart. Every kid (except the baby) has a number of cards to complete, after so many cards, they get a ticket. They can spend their tickets on things like playing outside, playing up in their room or on the computer. I even threw in some library visits and a walk to the park as rewards. The problem? We did it for one day and I am exhausted. Pooped beyond belief. That evening as I lay in the recliner in aching pain, the kids rubbed my feet with lotion...for a ticket. The house was relatively picked up and the dishes were done, so it was a good thing. I was just sore (I still am and this was three days ago) and tired from it all. And I didn't even get to do my own chores!

I found the following incident to be rather telling of my situation. I made up my own chore cards and had put them aside in a place where I *thought* the baby could not reach. I needed an hour or two to make up my poster board for my cards. The cards were just sitting and waiting for me to find the time and I was busy as a bumble bee trying to keep up with the other three in showing them how to do their chores. Well, the baby could reach them. He mutilated them and lost them. Humpf, I thought. How amusing. I can't do my chores because the baby has sabotaged me. He doesn't want me doing the chores anymore than I do. Or he always has a way of intruding upon me in the middle of attempting to do them. Dishes are next to impossible unless I put him in his playpen for half an hour. He is constantly pulling on me, my clothes and whichever helper I have. Trying to get up on the stool, grab dirty or clean dishes and throw them somewhere other than where they belong. Argh!

So in conclusion, I suck at this mom thing. I don't know how I am going to manage with another one.