Today was the first day of being a true stay-at-home mom of four kids.  Jaden no longer attends daycare and catches the bus to and from school at home. The bus comes at 8:23am.  I’d been thinking thru the morning schedule for days now – do I feed the kids before taking Jaden to the bus or do I wait until I get back?  Do I have time to pump or can I put it off until the threelets are fed?  All of these questions I was too overwhelmed to really plan out so I figured – what the heck, I’ll just take the morning as it comes and figure what will work best later.

Doug woke me up before he left for work and I rolled my butt out of bed and made a pot of coffee right away.  Got Jaden dressed and fed him breakfast (which I later found Doug had also fed him breakfast).  Filled my new coffee mug (courtesy of Rachael) and put on my new hat (product of a stress relieving trip to Wal-Mart).  Jaden got his boots, hat and sky goggles on (I couldn’t talk him out of the goggles).  You can imagine what the two of us looked like as we walked down the street – sky goggles and mom pjs.  Right as I stepped out the front door, I thought something was a rye since there were no kids at the corner.  But I thought, maybe the bus comes a little after 8:23.  So we walked to the corner and waited.  10 mins later the bus hadn’t come and the other kids were no where in sight.  My fear became reality – we missed the bus on the very first day!  CRAP now what was I going to do?

I debated leaving the triplets in their cribs as I jumped in the car – but figured that move wouldn’t earn me the mother of the year award.  So … I started packing.  Threw a hat on each baby and covered the car seats with blankets.  Got all three clicked into the car – buckled Jaden into his car seat – turned the Chipmunks movie on the DVD player and backed the minivan out of the driveway.  The drive to school was shorter than the time it took me to load the car!  The secretary was waiting at the door for us at Willow Springs so I didn’t have to walk Jaden into school.  When the van door opened Jaden took off running to say hi to his friend Luke.  It took me calling his name seven times before he realized he didn’t have his backpack on.  He came back, grabbed his backpack and forgot to give me a kiss goodbye.  But darn it – we made it to school!  Phew!

What a way to kick off our new routine!  Proof that from here on out, I just need to hold on for dear life.  It’s going to be a crazy ride and no use getting stressed.  So what if Jaden wears his underwear backwards – at least he’s got some on, right?  I got dressed this morning – but was threw up on, not by one child, but three!  Guess what – I actually had time to shave my legs this morning!  Or – oops I have the kids all in the wrong car seats, but they were all buckled up!

So very different than my well planned days in the corporate office.  My perfect cup of coffee poured and back at my desk each morning by 8:20.  But those stories wouldn’t make for a very interesting blog, now would it?  Well aren’t you in luck that my life has just gotten interesting!  Here’s to being a true stay-at-home mom to four boys under the age of four!  I hope you buckled your seat belt, it’s going to be a wild ride.