Somedays, it all clicks

And today is one of those supermom days.

Over the weekend, Dowlan came home. On the first anniversary of home-ownership, we tackle the final pile--the sewing and craft area. With about six hours of work, it is transfigured from a 6'X6'X10' pile of boxes, piles and miscellany to an organized workspace. We had some delightfully fun moments as well, like a civilized meal out as a family, nighttime trampolining with glow sticks and spare children, dancing in the sprinklers with the monarch butterflies as they pass through town.

As far as Monday mornings go, this one went delightfully well.

We made it to school early, with everything we needed. After school, the kids got to play with the instruments in my classroom a bit while I wrapped it up. We head home and Charlie's bus-induced motion-sickness finally gets the better of him right as we're pulling into the driveway.

No big deal. The girls grab backpacks and head in. I get Charlie out of his carseat, his carseat out of the car and proceed to the porch where I strip them both down. Charlie into the bath, the covers into their own bath.

He instantly feels better and is ready to bound and play. They have a snack and do homework while I get dishes done and things tidied away. Dowlan brought all the boxes of Halloween things down before he left town this morning, so I decorate a bit and give the girls their halloween clothes from the 90% clearance rack at Target two years ago. I hang the carseat covers out to dry and get rugs and sheets into the wash.

Then I surprise the girls with good news--tonight we're going to our first Girl Scout meeting!

It's a quarter of a mile away, if that, so Charlie hops in the stroller and the girls walk alongside. The autumn air is perfectly warm and breezy. After signing them up, we head home to play with Legos and hang the first washed rugs out to dry.

We walk to get the girls, his Pediasure in hand. By the time we get home, they've all had a half-mile walk and I've had a mile-walk. Just about right for the evening. While I make beds, they get their vitamins, brush their teeth, pick out clothes for the next day, dress for bed and climb into their clean sheets, ready for bedtime stories.

One Lego Star Wars book and one chapter of Laura Ingalls Wilder later, I have three children asleep in a completely clean house, completely unpacked, completely settled, completely complete. (Minus the Daddy, but that can't be helped right now.)

I've got a carseat to reassemble and reinstall before I sit down in my newly-organized sewing room to work on the hem ruffle for Dixie's Laura Ingalls Wilder dress for Halloween and go to bed on clean sheets of my own.

Sometimes, I've got this motherhood thing down.