I must have missed the fact that when you do a home remodel, your life, not just your house, gets thrown into chaos. But that’s exactly what’s happened. I wrote four months ago that we were going to change the flooring downstairs. And the weekend of Easter, we finally started.
In the photo, that is my refrigerator in my dining room. Behind it, out of view of the camera, is the stove. The entire downstairs is down to concrete and the kids have enjoyed the new adventure of “picnic” dinners upstairs in the loft on a blanket.
It may take a few weeks (months?) to put this all back together, and that part I’m OK with. My husband - with help from his dad - is doing all the work himself, bless him. My job? Corral the children out of the way! I try to help when I can and the kids have helped a bit, but mostly, by the time we get home at night, we have our evening routine to fly into (dinner, play, bath, homework, bed). I didn’t do that last night, and my mistake smacked me in the head later in the evening.
The kids and I didn’t get upstairs for baths until nearly 8 and then I tried to do homework with my son (in kindergarten, it’s mainly reviewing letters and numbers and sounds). But he wanted nothing to do with it. I started to get frustrated and just said, “Fine. If you’re not going to do this, go to bed.” But then I remembered that he hadn’t gone to bed until the 10 p.m. the night before. He was exhausted and could barely keep his eyes open.
I cooled down, apologized and gently put the kids into bed (both were asleep in 15 minutes at about 8:30). This morning, we tackled the homework with fresh eyes. And yes, it got done. Note to self: Do the routine first. The dishes, laundry and pick up can wait.
