Mental Health Day

Mental health day. That's what I'm calling it. I did way too many things yesterday. So I have resolved to do the minimum today. I'm thankful for changes and for seasons. School has started and I'm back to being a mom of two - during most of the day.

Lincolns birthday party. Never again. Ok, not really never again. But I bit a tad more off than I could chew. I worked my butt off yesterday. I got so much done. Like things that have been on my to-do list for months, I got done. WHILE watching the neighbor girls. That's madness. 

I cleaned out these drawers. As I have said, I am not very good at maintaining. I would imagine if I went through these drawers monthly they would stay nice and tidy. Like don't put new coupons in the drawer without taking the old ones out first, sort of thing. But it's so much easier just to stuff more and more into these drawers. In my old house, not exaggerating, there were four actual drawers in the entire house. Three in the kitchen and one in my bathroom. So when I moved into our new house, I had no idea what I would even do with all these drawers. I have drawers to burn! And I suppose figuratively, burn them, I have. They've basically been keeping garbage. But I'm telling you, you won't believe the number of papers kids come home with. Papers. Papers I tell you! I really should track the average. I bet it's like... 3-5 papers a day. Easy. That's 30-50 papers a month. 

Lincolns birthday party was, I hope, a success. I was pretty proud of the dirt cake I made. Basically, every detail was Lincolns idea. This was easily the biggest birthday party I've ever put on. A close second would be his fifth birthday when a guy named Kermit stopped by, test drove, bought, and drove away with our Subaru Forester all in the span of the party. That was wild.

But two hours with this many boys -without Micah here to help me. That was wild. Thank goodness a few of my friends stayed so I was wasn't the only adult. What was I thinking. 

Anyways, after being on a high from getting so many things done yesterday, inevitably I came back down. 

I'm on strike from our dishwasher. I hate it. It's tiny and it doesn't work. Well, it thinks it's working but the dishes don't get clean. So we haven't used it in probably a month now. 

The point of telling you that is that, praise the Lord, Micah doesn't mind washing dishes. So sometimes in the evenings, I like to sit on a barstool by the counter and talk to him while he washes dishes. I imagine it's a similar feeling to chatting with your favorite bartender. Although I'd like to think Micah and I are a little closer than that. I was sitting there last night when discouragement hit me. I did all that work, made everything how Lincoln wanted it, had nine or ten (I lost count) boys over... And I don't remember hearing him say thank you. Not once. Ugh, that is so discouraging. Kinda makes me want to not even tell him when his birthday is next year. I'm not a big birthday party person. I'm probably 4 on the 1 to 10 Pinterest Perfect scale. So I don't get a lot of fulfillment just by throwing a party. I do it because I love my kid. Because I want to see him happy. But if he doesn't even notice, if he's not even thankful, what's the point? I suppose I just have this idea in my head. Me, bringing out the perfect birthday cake/present. My kid, wide-eyed and smiling "WOW! Thank you mom!!!" 

How do you teach thankfulness? My husband says we just have to keep reminding them. Keep telling them to say thank you. Every time. Maybe I should take them somewhere where kids don't have birthday parties, where they don't have toys or even houses. Maybe I should stop buying them things. 

Oh and speaking of buying things. I just feel like money is flying outta here. And not like dolla dolla bills in the air. More like I got bills I gotta pay kinda way. It just seems like everything is adding up. Our closet remodel was a little expensive, our pots and pans were chipping, so we needed to replace them (and I got All-Clad so apparently I will never be replacing them again) But they didn't come cheap. Micah registered for a few more classes. Oh and the kids. They are growing! I went to get out Lincolns pants for school that I had put away in the spring. Literally every pair but one either had holes/falling apart or was too small. And the same for Asa too. And all three kids needed new shoes. Money here. Money there. Target, Kohls you're welcome. I am praying we can buckle down and save some money this month. Goodness.