A 15 minute job?

A while back there was an article circulating around the Web discussing exactly what stay at home moms do all day.  It's one of those great mysteries in life and actually pertains to all moms because when you have kids (at least for me) you experience a great slow down but a lot of busy.  Being a mom means slowing down to hug and cuddle and play.  But it also means more laundry, more dishes, more little people who need you to do things for them. 

The article also said something about things that should take 15 minutes taking about 40.  AGGG!  That can be one of the most frustrating things about motherhood.   As I got home from work today and tried to get groceries inside with the two kids, by myself, I couldn't help but think of this article.

Here's basically how it went:

On the way home, I covered the basic expectations with my kids that we would get home and we would all work together to unload the groceries, put the groceries away, and unload the dishwasher.  Upon arriving home, I take one child out who promptly asks to carry the bread.  The other child has taken his shoes off in the car and now must put his shoes on before he can help.  I get the bread sack for the one and tell the other to get his shoes on.  Then I grab a handful of sacks and head up the steps, telling the child with the bread to wait until I've put the dog all the way inside the house before she opens the gate and goes up the steps.  (You remember our lost dog who has been threatened with the loss of limb because he likes to run off if the gate is unattended, right?)  Mama in, dog in, groceries in.  I go back out and tell the child with bread to go in and put the bread on the counter.  Child with no shoes still has not shoes.  I specifically tell child with no shoes how to go about putting the shoes on since he is still in the car and it's kind of tricky to put on shoes in such a confined space.  I grab more groceries and head inside, surprised that child with bread has not returned for more groceries.  Inside, I cannot find child with bread.  I check several rooms before coming back outside.  She is on the sidewalk in the backyard with the grocery sack.  She is walking kind of funny.  I'm pretty sure this funny walk involves poop.  I get close and smell.  Conversation about poop ensues.  I go up the steps, asking the child with bread to follow.  She does not.  I turn around and she has  taken the bread and the tortilla chips out of the bag and is struggling to carry the bag, chips and bread.   She slowly makes her way towards me until I lose my cool and escort her up the steps and inside, where I go through the process of cleaning her up.  As I send her upstairs to get new underwear and tell she has to stay upstairs until I tell her to come down; she is unhappy at being made to go upstairs and throws a fit.  I end up "helping her" up the stairs.  I go back down the stairs and outside to find child with no shoes still has no shoes.  A few stern words that were probably heard by our neighbors who will now not be nominating me for any mothering awards and then I head back in with more groceries while child hopefully gets his shoes on.  Outside again and child finally has shoes on.  Between the two of us, we get the remainder of the things inside.  The two of us put away the groceries and in the middle, I allow child who is upstairs to come downstairs as long as she sits on the stairs.  She is unhappy and does a mini fit on the stairs.  I ignore this and work on groceries.  Once groceries are put away, we start on the unloading the dishwasher.  I allow child on stairs to join us.  Midway through I am detecting a poop smell.  Child who was poop free originally is now presenting with poopy pants syndrome.  Are you serious?  Child from the stairs works on dishes while I take the other child to the bathroom and discover a major case of "I-forgot-to-wipe" itis.  Send child upstairs to change while we continue to put away the dishes and I start  the laundry. 

All in all, putting away groceries and dishes probably took 45 minutes...and most of my patience.  Perhaps I will find it under the laundry pile.