Life is too chaotic right now and it’s finally starting to get to me.

Our homeschooling schedule is a mess because half the time I’m busy with the baby or I’m so tired in the morning that the thought of starting circle time makes me want to cry. Well, actually, circle time always makes me want to cry. Seriously, am I the only one that hates shaking a maraca first thing in the morning? Am I the only one that loathes John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt? I tried to sneak circle time out of our homeschooling schedule but both the girls complained.  I’ve recently tried to add a touch of hipster by playing our ukulele while we sing and that’s actually pretty fun except that the thing needs tuning every 30 seconds and the Farmer in the Dell does not appreciate waiting for me to find a perfect G.

Evenings are even worse than mornings. I used to write or knit in the evenings but now that time has been set aside to walk up and down the hall 4087 times with a screaming baby while simultaneously trying to convince two wide-awake girls that they should be asleep and not having their dolls act out scenes from Frozen to entertain our 15+ lb cat. It’s hard to walk and yell and write all at once. Kind of like patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time.

I’m tempted to get up early in the morning and try writing then – mostly just to see what I would actually write. It could be epic or completely incomprehensible. Or both. Kind of like a modern Finnegan’s Wake. In blog form.

I don’t think getting up early is going to happen any time soon though – certainly not tomorrow. Right now it’s 11:30 at night and ALL THREE of my kids are still awake. Harbour played under the covers with her dolls until 10:00 when I took them away – she’s been screaming ever since. I thought River was asleep but it turns out she’s been secretly reading her Magic Tree House books using the light from the hallway. Forest has been up and down for a couple hours. It looks like he’s asleep again – probably for the night. Except that I really need to change his diaper or we’re both going to be wet and angry at 3:30 am, so he’s about to be awake again pretty soon.

What we need right now more than anything is a strict daily routine, and that will be hard because I’m terrible at routines. I think the girls need it though. I think I need it. We tried to follow one this summer by starting our school year in August in the hopes that the routine would be second nature by the time the baby arrived, but it didn’t seem to help. I can’t seem to get my kids to sleep at night, I can’t get things done on time, I can’t keep up with the clutter in my house. Honestly, I consider the day a success if I manage to run the dishwasher, do a load of laundry and keep the cats from smothering the baby.

I want to do more though. I want to finish the four blog posts that I’ve started. I want to sit down and knit in front of the TV. I want to wake up in the morning to a tidy house and not feel defeated before I have my first cup of tea. I want my kids to go to sleep at a normal time like normal kids. I want to catch up on the  paperwork that I still have to do for the business that I’ve closed. I want to go to bed before midnight.

I don’t actually know how to do any of this.

I think maybe what I need right now even more than a strict daily routine is a bit of grace for myself and my family. I just don’t know where to find that grace. It’s probably stuck under the couch with the missing library books or something. I suppose I’ll find it eventually.