How to really make the most of a weekend on your own with 6 kids

First, get a babysitter on Saturday night and get out of the house. Stop at a drive thru on the way home for a bite to eat just for kicks. Go home to a houseful of sleeping children.

Second, spend a little time on the internet until one of your kids throws up on his bedroom carpet. Then let him come sleep in your bed while you clean it up. You can't make a little kid sleep in a barf-smelling room, can you?

Third, get some shut-eye...but only for an hour or two. Don't forget to wake up and clean up your kid and bed after he pukes there too! Decide that you'll definitely be missing church in the morning now that you've got a serial vomiter on your hands. Comfort yourself that at least you'll get to sleep in late.

Fourth, forget all about the sleeping in thing when a knock comes at the door at 6am and you remember that nobody remembered to call the hubby's carpool ride to say that he didn't need a ride today. Drag your bedraggled self to the door to tell him on the spot instead.

Fifth, try to remain cheerful as the children start waking up one at a time prior to 7am. Make helpful breakfast suggestions without opening your eyes.

Sixth, after a successful day of vomitless interaction, get 4 of the 6 children nicely tucked away in bed on schedule. Hunker down for a relaxing movie while you catch up on laundry folding.

Seventh, try not to let it bother you that while you were folding laundry and laughing at the movie, your family room was filling up with water. Spend the next hour and a half bailing water out of your house, wet/dry vac'ing with a pitiful 1-gallon sized vac, and find that the hubby plugged up both outlets for your All Dry system with socks and mesh in order to be helpful and keep mice out. Thanks, honey!!! (Take socks out of drain pipes and watch the water come rolling out.....)

Eighth, treat your famished self to a midnight snack and tell your story on your blog. The blogosphere always listens, you know! Prepare for a restful night's sleep on your unmade bed since the making-of-the-bed got set aside for the water festival, and now a child is sleeping upon it. Comfort yourself that it won't be so bad, though, because you're only going to get 5 hours of sleep before having to get the children up for school!

(** would it be very bad of me to just not set my alarm and take the kids into school late? I am seriously considering it.....)