Laundry, Lists and Lessons

I wish I could report that my two week absence from blogging is due to some amazing trip or creative streak in the craft room.  However, my two week absence from blogging has been filled with dishes, laundry, homework, and yard work.  Sometimes the mundane act of keeping a family running takes over and you feel like you are swimming in tasks.  Lucy recently said to me "I don't want to do homework."  I answered her with "about 90% of the things I did today were things I didn't want to do".  Wow...really?  Is there really only 10% of my day that can be categorized as things I want to do?

Do I want to pack lunches, cook dinner, unload the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, check sentence structure, prod children to pick up toys, fold laundry, wipe counter tops, test med students, answer emails, answer phones, troubleshoot technology, train new employees, write checks, work on x and y graphs, explain character development, pick up toys, explain how grapes become raisins, make a grocery list, clean out the fridge, eat raisins, sniff expired yogurt, and shave my arm pits?  Not really.

So is this all?  Am I just stuck in a structured rut?  A rut that is so deep that I can't see the sun except when it is directly overhead?  (10% of the day)  I can't see the sunrise or sunset because I am so entrenched.  I wonder if everyone gets this feeling.  Trapped by chores.  Shackled by responsibility.  I was thinking about how we have moved from the needy toddler stage into the independent kid stage.  Then I realized that Emma and I are sitting down for 2 hours a night to work on homework.  Hmmmm...so I have traded a dependent Lucy for a dependent Emma?

Speaking of homework...  Emma Jane has to write a story about her family.  When I asked her what she was going to write about her family, she was stumped for a bit.  But then she said, "it's too bad we have not been through anything like the revolutionary war.  Now that would be something to write about!"  I apologized for not living in a different era.  She then asked if anyone we knew had been sold as a slave.  I said no and again apologized for not living in a more interesting time.  Then she asked if I knew that it was once illegal for black people to vote.  I said yes.  She then asked how they could ever gain the right to vote if they couldn't vote to change the law.  I told her that sometimes the Government will step in and right something that the voters won't fix.  Then she said "when will the Government fix it so Uncle Greg and Heath can get married?"  Soon, I hope.  And then I apologized a third time for the current era in which we live.