Chaos Among Order

Today is the first day after Thanksgiving vacation that I have attempted to get back into our routine after having spent the last week sick with the flu. Today was also a day for a little s*x education. I'll get to that later.

Sticking to a routine and schedule is extremely hard for my kids. People with ADHD tend to reject order, routines, planning ahead, and waiting their turn- not to mention a host of polite and socially acceptable niceties. My kids are no exception and the only reason my husband-who also has ADHD- has it 90% together is because he managed to force himself to form a daily schedule accompanied by little rituals for organization and structure. If he strays at all from it, it's danger Will Robinson time. He won't even remember to take his medications if a step is out of place.

I've been trying for years to get these kids adopt a daily regime and it's like butting heads with a ram all day long. You'd think that every day of their life is their first and they don't know what they're doing. This is the second year I'm homeschooling the girls and the third year I'm homeschooling J, I'm really over this crapola. J is seventeen, Snoo is fifteen, and Mooch is fourteen. Good Lord already. I feel like I'm constantly barking out orders.

Go back and make your bed!
Haven't you worn those same clothes for three days?
Did you sleep in that? Where are your clothes?
Go get dressed!
Did you wash your face?
Go brush your hair for goodness sakes!
You need to eat right now, we have a schedule..get moving!
Go brush your teeth!
Get out your devotionals..What do you mean you don't know where your book is? How many times have I told you to put it in the same place every day!?
OK, what are you doing now? It's time to read..not time to pop your blackheads!
No, you can't interrupt a science lesson to go wash your underwear, you should have done that on your laundry day!
Where are you going? You need to get these fractions done! Uh, NO, you can't go "get dressed" I thought that's what you already did this morning? You don't get dressed and then claim you have to get dressed again for youth group which is five hours away!!!

It's like this almost every day and for a perfectionist like me who craves order and control, it drives me literally insane. They all seem to need to be micromanaged, yet they fight it at the same time and I can't stand having to micromanage anyone. J actually thought he should get a sick day today because "he didn't sweep well". Oh good Lord, get up and get over with it already! I see a lot of their behavior has avoidance tactics, but in general even when they studied outside the home they were still like this. The neighbor used to give Snoo a ride to school and it got to where she was just leaving her because every single morning she was running behind and doing everything at the last minute. I would start pushing her out the door because I was going to pull my hair out and go bonkers at the sight of it. Once I sent her to school in her pajamas. Yes, I am that kind of mom.

Monday nights the girls have AWANA and they're always a bit distracted and wound up. J is usually recovering from staying up all night on Friday and Saturday playing XBOX. I had a lousy nights sleep but I got my tired self moving because I have to. There's this thing called a work ethic. You don't whine about it, you just get it done fast and efficiently and then you move on to the next thing. With this kids everything that's out of sight is out of mind. They rarely follow up on things or study anything after the fact. They have no concept of time whatsoever and it's nothing to see them spend two hours on four math problems or five hours on one page of vocabulary. J will spend five hours trying his best to get out of doing the dishes until he ends up having the job for a week due to his whiny, cry baby behavior whereas he COULD have gotten them done in like eight minutes and be done with it. It's no wonder I don't drink.

Thank God I made chili last night because I could barely keep a sense of order among their chaotic energy and there was no way I was going to get anything cooked today. I took a break at about 2:30pm which was the first time I actually took a drink of water and sat down for a bit. I watched Molly Ringwald and Martha Stewart making mittens out of moth riddled sweaters. And I have no idea why because I have no intentions of ever sewing my own mittens out of old sweaters. When would I find the time? And I'm all out of patience and sweaters anyways. I did get to see Lidia Bastianich make sausage with fennel along with Odette Fada who made Raviolo with Egg Yolk Truffle Butter and Gina DePalma of Babbo who made a yeast bread called Gubana. I was salivating the whole time. I don't usually watch the Martha Show but lately I've been recording them and this show was worth watching for the whole hours. I have an Alta pasta maker and I can't wait to try Odette's recipe for Raviolo and the other recipes.

And if I'm lucky enough maybe I'll get to visit their restaurants if The Husband ever goes out to New York to see the Rangers play. He's downstairs now going through every strand of Christmas lights like a good husband. I hate doing the lights so if I can pawn that job off onto someone else I'm a happy girl.

And because my day wasn't crazy enough I ended up having to give a lesson on how chicken procreation. Apparently I need to give Snoo a little more tutoring in the area of biology. While I was making egg salad sandwiches in the kitchen Snoo was watching me from her usual spot and then said, "I've always wondered how eggs get like that. I mean, how they get to be the kind of eggs we can eat since they were baby chickens."

"Those weren't baby chickens. The eggs you buy in the store are meant to be sold for consumption, they were never allowed to form into baby chicks."

"What do you mean? How did they get like that then?"

"We've talked about this before, remember, they aren't fertilized?"

"Yeah, I know, but how is the egg fertilized, I don't get it."

"By the rooster, Snoo, the male has to fertilize the egg in order to make a chick."

"I don't get that, so what, does like the rooster like go poop on the egg or something?"

...background heckling from siblings

"Say WHAT? Why in the world would pooping on an egg fertilize it? That's a totally different bodily function coming from a totally different area of the body which has nothing to do with s*x. Goodness child."

"So what do they do then?"

"They do want what most creatures do to have babies, silly girl."

With a look of mortification and disgust on her face.."You mean they have chicken s*x? That's disgusting. Oh my gosh. Yuck!"

...hysterical laughter coming from the diningroom at this point

"Yes my dear child, they have chicken s*x."

The things kids say, I tell you, there's never an end to the amusement and surprise.

By this time I can't stop laughing and now I will never be able to look at an egg again and I already have issues with eggs as it is. After that was settled lunch began with J refusing to eat his egg salad sandwich and muffled giggles about which was funnier, the idea of chickens having s*x at all or the question of a rooster pooping on an egg as a feasable way to make baby chickens-and then admitting this thought outloud.

Yes, we're all crazy, no need to email me to confirm this widely known fact. At the end of the day though, my darling daughter can be assured she learned something new. Roosters, in fact, do not go around pooping on the hen's eggs. At least not that I know of. And chickens have s*x.

Ew, gross.