American Gothic

I used to think that the strong stoic farm woman in the painting American Gothic was meditating on the miles of wheat blowing serenely on her thousand acre farm.  Now that I live on a farmette,  I am  pretty sure she was thinking, "Hurry the hell up and paint the picture, because I just noticed that the pigs got out of their pen again, the dog is about to eat one of the chickens and I think I see a tornado headed in this direction."  I hear you sister.  This farm woman feels your pain.

Life has been kind of kicking my ass lately. Having a full-time job, a full-time farmette,  and three full-time children combined with the fact that I am an over achieving procrastinator who needs eight hours of sleep, means I am a train wreck.  As I write this I am realizing it has been so long since I have gone to a hairdresser that my current updo bears a sad resemblance to the one my lady friend in the painting is sporting, but not as tidy.

My day starts at 5 am and doesn't stop until I plop into bed around 8:30 pm to read to Scrappy and James Dean as I sip on a very large glass of merlot. Luckily, since the husband has started his own business, he is home and is able to deal with animals and has even taken on doing laundry and cleaning up after dinner, but this past week he was away and it was all on me. I got up at 5am to attempt some sort of exercise since all of this sitting on my ass everyday instead of manual farm work has manifested itself around my waist.  I am sure the nightly vino Big Gulp has nothing to do with my pants feeling a little snug.

After letting the dogs out and feeding the cats, I casually check my emails, shower, turn on the coffee and start making the waffle batter and oatmeal for the children.  Everything is totally under control. I then glance at the clock to see when I need to wake my little angels for breakfast.  Shit!  I am ten minutes behind schedule! I  run upstairs to get dressed and quietly go into Prince's room to tell him in my nicest mommy voice that he needs to get up.  I then run back downstairs to remove the waffles from the waffle iron before they turn to hockey pucks and turn off the oatmeal which has now boiled over spreading a sticky gooey mess all across the top of the stove. I run back upstairs throw the covers off of Scrappy and manage to get him dressed before he even realizes it's morning.  At this point I scream in my scariest mommy voice for Prince to get out of bed and they head downstairs to eat.

I throw lunches into backpacks and head outside trying to brush my teeth while finishing my coffee on the way to let the chickens out, and give the cow and horse some clean water and hay.  I burst back in the front door screaming for everyone to brush their teeth and put their shoes on because why would they ever think to do that on their own?

Two out of three of the boys manages to get out to the car without their backpacks and I start cursing under my breath as I slip my clogs on while holding onto six bags and Scrappy's hoodie. I get out the door and start to relax.  We are not going to be late after all!  Wait. There was a frost last night?

I watch little JD as he tries in vain to reach the windshield of the minivan to scrape the ice off. I jump into the driver's seat, turn the heat to eighty degrees and start maniacally spraying the windshield with washer fluid in the hopes that it will melt the ice.  I manage to get strip of visibility at the bottom of the windshield so we pull out with the windows down and my head hunched over the steering wheel so I can see.  Please don't let a cop see me right now.

We get to school with two minutes to spare and I let out a sigh of relief.

When we get home, I feed the layers and collect the eggs.  Noelle sees me and rambles over to the fence and gives me a lonely greeting and I feel very guilty that I have not spent any time with her since the previous weekend. I then feed and water the meat birds after I move their chicken tractor and then spend 20 minutes trying to get the escapees back into the tractor.

 Luckily it wasn't too hot because I forgot to open the greenhouse door.  Lettuce, broccoli, arugula and spinach is all growing nicely.  The dogs are a bundle of wagging licking, jumping energy since they cannot believe we actually came back! I fight my way past them back into the house to help with homework while I clean up the breakfast mess so I can begin the dinner making mess.  If I start dinner before soccer practice, MAYBE we will eat before 8pm.  Why not just give them some chicken nuggets you ask?  Because I am determined to be the mother who makes the healthy home cooked dinner even if it means Scrappy is falling asleep in his quinoa.

Of course, I don't start dinner before soccer practice and I cannot possibly start it after until I scrub the hardened oatmeal slime off the burners, put away the dishes from the dishwasher, unpack the boys luchbags and check Facebook.  What is wrong with me?  "Looks like dinner will be 8:30 tonight boys!" They don't even ask when dinner is going to be ready anymore.  They grab a bowl of cereal at 5 and wait.

I crawl into bed thinking tomorrow will go smoother and remember that JD has play rehearsal and I need to start fundraising for the drama club like I promised.  Oh yeah, and that French teenager I agreed to host for ten days is coming next week.  I'd better clean Prince's room this weekend.  I guess the unopened bag of winter rye we bought to plant as a cover crop last year is going to have to wait until next year.  I can probably hold off on mulching the beds until next weekend, but I am definitely, positively going to plant the garlic after Scrappy's soccer game but before JD's on Saturday; right after or is that before I go grocery shopping and make shrunken apple heads for the Halloween Party I swore I wasn't going to have but am now feeling a little ambivalent about? Is it OK to have a Halloween Party the week before Thanksgiving?