Quit Yer Whining

This title is lovingly addressed to myself. Laundry. Bleh. Making dinner. Yeesh. Driving kids everywhere all day every day. Arg. Kids using me as a human kleenex. Come on.

As a mother of 5 kids, ages 11 down to 9 months, one of whom has some extra special needs, my job can be stressful, messy, tiring, relentless and even a tad monotonous at times. But it occurred to me the other night as I was rushing around the kitchen making dinner (with Noah following me whacking me with a water bottle and screaming at me, Duncan asking me a million questions, Marley sneaking into the pantry for yet another snack that would render her appetiteless by supper time) and complaining about it like mad in my head, that I really should not be complaining.

I was doing a 'wing it' dinner with odds and ends I had at the end of my last grocery shopping cycle. A veggie stir fry with glass noodles. I stood at my counter looking at the food for a moment. Many colours of bell pepper and other veggies, onions, spices, soy sauce, oil, noodles... I didn't grow any of it. I did not harvest the mung beans and then fashion them into thin noodles that somehow turn clear when they cook. I did not ferment to perfection the soy beans to make the seasoning sauce. I could not even tell you where turmeric comes from. I have never grown a single olive tree, and therefore have not cold-pressed olives in my kitchen to make my own olive oil. I just had to cut some stuff up, heat some oil, boil some water, and pretty much, there's dinner.

Same goes for my kids lunches that were made later that night. No wheat harvesting in my back yard. Followed by grinding said wheat into flour. Followed by, how the heck do I make my own yeast? And try as I may, I don't think I could ever make a box that would hold juice, or my own straws. It all just had to be put together. In containers I didn't make. In a lunch bag that I didn't have to sew.

I do a ton of laundry. A TON. Put clothes in. Add soap. Turn on. Leave. Come back. Put clothes in other magical machine, turn on. Leave. Come back. Unload. Fold. No scrubbing. No wash board. No hand rinsing each item of clothing. No hanging clothes outside, and only when the weather permits. If my child vomits all over their bed, for example, sometime in the dead of winter, I don't have to strip the bed and stick it outside to freeze into a big vomit-blanket ice-ball so that we don't have to smell it for the rest of the night. Instead it's all clean and back on the bed by mid morning the next day.

I do not have to take my horse to the local market, on a 30-minutes-each-way trip. Though if I had a slew of Icelandics, I must admit I would be finding excuses to saddle all of them up and take the whole family pretty much anywhere. That's another story. But in the cold or heat I sit in my optimal temperature car, listening to music, or sitting in blissful silence as I am running my errands. And I'd like to see how I'd handle carting groceries plus, say, a mattress home on the back of a horse.

I'm still busy and crazed. Yes. But when I start thinking about all the things I don't have to do in any given day, it kind of blows my mind. And makes me feel grateful. And in awe of my ancestors. And so lame for whining.