Playing Mama ;)

It's been a long day today...Mama, Sarah, Leah, and Levi were gone thrift-store shopping to stock up on fall clothes and take advantage of half-price Wednesday. I needed all of my butchering, bakering, and candle-stick makering skills because I had a Mama-load of tasks to do:

• Watch the kids and make sure no one Disappears or Chokes. ;)
• School the kids. I know this isn't news to you gals who have been homeschooled your whole lives but to any strangers to the idea, this means a 5th grader, a 3rd grader, a 1st grader, and a Pre-K student...all at once. I managed to cover reading The Secret Garden aloud to them, (And yes, I attempted a Yorkshire accent for Martha) science, vocabulary and spelling, and handwriting.
• Bake for the co-op--this included concocting a custom ginger-cookie recipe by combining two seperate ones, experimenting with results, and turning out 5 dozen, baking 3 dozen cinnamon rolls, (I had to make a second batch due to some being too large. *who can say, "breakfast!" ;) and 3 knotted bread loaves. It was a relatively small week, actually.
• Summon up a batch of brilliancy to get energy out of children who have been cooped up inside a lot due to excess rain in the area. (It isn't the rain, but the thunder and lightening that makes me keep them inside.)
• Make a pot of chili
• Keep the house clean
• Etc.

Of course it was tiring, and of course I had to blare Celtic folk-songs on Pandora to keep a stream of awareness in my mind, and of course there were a few discipline sessions and more than a few raised eyebrows and "You'd better not do that again" but there was a moment when I realized that it was all way worth it, and that I had been riding on God's wings of energy. That moment?
I was reading a letter aloud to the younger ones and Gracie was sitting on my lap. Her chubby little arms stole around my neck and she kissed me loudly, then proclaimed. "I'm so glad you're part of my family!"
It is totally worth the work. What better reward could I ask for? :) ~Rachel