Managing on your own

Today Anna took off for a few hours to take care of a few things in town. I didn't mind and thought it shouldn't be a real problem.

Well, it didn't turn out as "a problem" for me - I just got really busy doing nothing special. From 10.30 AM to 13.30 PM I constantly tried to get five kids in the status fed, dry and clothed AT THE SAME TIME, never really making it. It took three hour before we could leave for the local play ground. Nothing I wanted to do was advanced, nor did it cause any trouble - it was just that whenever one thing was done two new things needed attention. and soon I was back on square 1 needing to make more food or change diapers again.

I didn't know if I should laugh or cry.

It felt a bit absurd that we met Anna right on the door step - she returning, we on our way out. A thought struck me: Should I have done less, waited for two more hands and get out at 1.40 instead?!?

The experience made me think of the challenges ahead. It's not hard to feed babies, change diapers, dress children and all the other things we will have to handle daily. Timing it all is a bit harder (and that was where I fell short today) but I guess we'll learn.

I think it is the next level that will be even harder - creating "free time" enough to do anything that will move life forward. Just doing what needs to be done in the moment, in that hour, is probably easy compared to be able to look ahead and plan what to make for dinner during the next few days, what needs to be bought at the supermarket, when to go groceries shopping...

And that's just the tip of the iceberg - fixing the garden, repairing stuff in the house, get out on a field trip, go away for the weekend...

I guess we'll need to be pros on being time efficient and to use the time that is at hand.