I want to give you a glimpse into the life of our family.

Today was one of those days, born out of neglect, or should I say procrastination, on my part. Book Club was rapidly approaching, like in two days. I was not only to have read Robinson Crusoe to the to children, I had also volunteered to run Book Club that month. I had never read Robinson Crusoe, nor did I really even know the story. It seems the children knew more than I as they had watched what I lovingly refer to as "a stupid movie," meaning it was a simple cartoon, about this incredible work of literature.

Two weeks prior to Book Club I realized I was not going to be finished with our current book, Pilgrim's Progress, in time to read Robinson Crusoe. Thus after much deliberation in my heart, I opted to put aside our friend Christian, in favor of the more pressing need of getting Robinson Crusoe read before the date needed.

Initially I had decided to read only when all children were present. This eliminated two mornings each week. After a week and a half I had only managed to read for about five hours. Resulting in more than half the book still unread.

I arose this morning with the decision that I was going to get the book finished in the next two days or else! I assembled the troops and told them we would be having a marathon reading session. I don't think this announcement would have met with enjoyment except that they thoroughly were enjoying the book, and the weather outside was topping out at about thirty degrees without a hint of snow on the ground. It's no fun to play when it is cold and there isn't any snow.

The children mentioned that most of them had not yet had breakfast. However, I was determined to not let that stop me from beginning my daily quest. I rushed to the pantry, found a box of Poptarts and placed them on the table with a bunch of apples.

There…Breakfast is served!

They gathered their notebooks, or other quiet materials for a marathon. I took my place in the rocker next to the window.

It took about thirty minutes for all the little ones to figure out they were supposed to be quiet. They wanted to play a game while I read, which often resulted in someone being upset with another. Bryan doesn't know the rules to any game, yet thinks somehow that he knows them all.

The room became quiet as seven of the children became quite content to listen, or else they were so absorbed in their own activity they didn't make a peep. I prefer to hope it was the previous of the two.

After quite awhile had passed I asked the children if I should stop reading. They unanimously agreed that I should keep reading, but perhaps they could take a bathroom break. I also instructed someone to begin gathering snacks so we could have refreshment while we read further. We snacked on a highly nutritional snack of Pringles. We seemed to devour three containers of it before I finished reading.

At that point I had already been reading for about two hours. In that time I had been sat upon by at least three of the children, a fourth trying to nudge his way onto my lap was not met with success and promptly fell to the floor.

The littler kids were becoming restless, so I sent them to the dungeon to play. The dungeon is known in most homes as the basement.

They played quietly for another bit of time, then Bryan came running to me asking in his often unrecognizable way for something that goes, like this. (He made the movements of his hands to be gun-like) He then ran up the stairs with the words, "Oh, I know where one is, in your room."

I sent David to follow to make sure he wasn't going to get into anything he wasn't supposed to. I did a quick survey of the house and decided that now was not a time to have an emergency call placed from our home. It was too frightful of a mess.

They emerged with two wrapping paper tubes, toilet paper tubes, and duct tape. "Whew!" I thought as I wiped my brow.

For the next half-hour or so, David, Bryan, and Briana sat in my living room making what they called, weapons of mass destruction. I vowed then and there to not allow David to watch the History Channel any more. Nor am I going to allow him the pleasure of helping his little brother or sister either!

I finally concluded that I had read enough for the day. When I looked at the clock I saw I had been reading for the better part of four hours. Somehow the house had gotten trashed.

Ashley needed help with her Algebra, so I went to help her as other kids went to do other things.

I tried repeatedly to figure out the problem Ashley was having, but was beside myself what was wrong. We worked and re-worked the problem. Finally, I said, "Um, 15 - 4 is eleven, not nine." This was MY mistake. I couldn't believe it! But I breathed a sigh of relief that we now knew how to work the problem, we just needed to be certain that Mom was not the one doing the subtraction.

As I descended the stairs I knew that something had to be done about the mess we seemed to have made. So I went to check my e-mail. (I'm wondering if any of you could relate to that last comment?) I concluded responding to the e-mails when I heard someone mention Peanut Butter Playdoh. It seems that while I was reading, and the subsequent math problem, coupled with a desire to have a clean house, I had completely forgotten to feed the kids lunch. Fortunately for me Ashley took the task upon her self when she realized it was 2:00 and it didn't look like I was spending any time in the kitchen. She made everyone some nutritious Peanut Butter Playdoh.

Fighting the desire to go take a nap, I began to rally the troops for a quick clean-up before Daddy would arrive home. Everyone took their respective rooms and worked diligently for nearly an hour. As Daddy walked in the door he was greeted by a clean kitchen, a clean table, swept floor, vacuumed living room, and kids who yelled, "We love you Dad!"

He was pleased.

I have this strange desire each day to measure all that we have done and decide if it was a successful day, or a failure kind of day. I could look at the undone math and see failure. Or I could look at nearly four hours of great literature, and see success. I could see that I barely prepared my children anything of value to put into their bodies as failure. Or I could see an older child who sees a need and takes care of it, as success. Or is that survival? I could see the making of armaments as a failure. Or I could see the ingenuity in using merely cardboard and duct tape as a success. My time seemed to flit away without changing mankind for the good today. But you know, All the kids were smiling as we sat down to dinner.

I think all in all, today was a success!