As of late I have determined a few things: #1- sleeping is a waste of time (as much as I like it) and if I could do away with it and eating (as much as I like that, too),I would have a whole lot more time to accomplish the things that are the reason for my #2.
#2-I used to have a clean home. I used to vacuum every square inch of our house at least twice a day, before work and after work. I used to clean the bathrooms everyday. I used to dust. It was a goal of mine to never go to bed with a dirty dish in the sink. Then 5 children happened, (and I do mean "happened") and a 1400 hundred square foot home to house said children. Now don't go getting all "grateful" on me. I am VERY, VERY thankful for my darling home! If you have read my previous posts, then you will know this. (See "Little Patch of Heaven")But now I have digressed. Moving onward.
I will now lead into my reasons for #3. I have this strange need to be perfect. I think OCD runs in my family. Pretty sure of it. And I am pretty sure I have passed it onto at least one of our children. Something about the need to line things up just so, or giving everyone a certain couch pillow and losing it when they get mixed up because only she, uh s/he, knows which pillow is which - (they are identical) drives her, uh, him/her, crazy. So I have this frantic side of me that goes into nut-so mode if anyone is coming to our house and it isn't the way I think it should be. I sort of panic. Okay, I big time panic, and my kids can testify to this. So can John. So can my neighbor, poor MaryJo. I spend most of her visit apologizing for the state of things.
#3 Because I have this strange obsessiveness with having a perfect house at any (every) moment, I assume that everyone else does as well, with one HUGE exception: their houses ARE perfect and I'm the oddball...But lately I have come to my #3. I bet I'm not the only one who's house is not perfect! I think this is a crazy, twisted image we all think everyone but us is able to pull off! So I am going to blow it all to the wind and give you a list of things you can pretty much count on finding at my house on a daily basis. I think I will post this on our front door as a disclaimer before entering.
Warning: You are about to enter the home of two parents who have worked 22 of the last 24 hours, for the last 3976 days. Over the course of that time we have quintupled our load, and been given no more hours in each day in which to accomplish our assigned tasks. Be aware that you may (probably will) encounter the following:
Dishes will be in the sink, and perhaps on the counter, possibly on the table from breakfast...and lunch...even though it is now almost dinner.
You are pretty much guaranteed to see a couch full of laundry, you may even get an eye full of underwear. But rest assured, it is a different load than the one you saw last time you visited.
We may very well be mid-homework battle as you enter. Which means that the insane amount of papers that a first and fifth grader bring home each and every day may be bowing the table under it's weight.
If you are lucky enough to come at a meal time, you may smell the yummy scents of meals being prepared verses the alternative of the lingering scent of a very full diaper. We have two of them in diapers at the present, so chances are not in your favor.
You are almost guaranteed to find cheerios on the floor under the table. Or between the couch cushions.
You may be greeted enthusiastically by boys flying at you off the couch. Or a baseball being pitched toward you at high speed.
You will probably witness an operetta. Just nod and tell her how beautiful it was.
I may be in my sweats.
I may or may not have had a shower.
My hair will most certainly be in a ponytail. I may have snot dried on my shirt.
I may not even have a bra on. Scary but true.
I confess that part of the reason there will be dishes in the sink is my dislike for food. Not all food, just easy food. Mac and cheese, cereal, scrambled eggs, ramen soup, grilled cheese sandwiches. Pretty much if it's quick and easy, then I won't like it. There is something about a meal that takes 2 hours to prepare and 13 bowls, cutting boards and pans that make it taste great! It's an area I need to work on.
I promise you there will be areas, possibly visible from the doorway, that need to be dusted.
There is a good chance that someone left their underwear on the floor in the bathroom.
Any given day, in one of the rooms, somebody's laundry basket will runneth o'er onto the floor.
There may be tooth paste on the bathroom sink, jelly on the kitchen counter, last nights dinner spilled over in the oven. The microwave probably needs to be wiped out.
If you come at bedtime, you are guaranteed to witness our "stay in your bed, don't get out of it one more time" teeth gritted battle.
At the end of the day we will look around as we rake up toys, and clothes, and cheerios, and think of all the cleanups we did today, and all the "me time" we did NOT do today. And we will think "How is it that I never stop all day long. Never. And at the end of the day it looks as though I have done NOTHING!"
"Ye have been warned. (Spencer likes pirate talk.)
Now, if you are willing to admit that you laughed at this posting because it's your life too, come on in. All others, make an appointment and I will clean up the cheerios first."
(This is the part I won't post on the door. It's my own reality check.)
There is a time and a season.
I probably will also rock my babies to sleep. I'll toss a ball to our 4 year old. I'll kiss the kids goodbye as they leave for school. We'll do homework together. We'll do chores (as hard as it is to believe), together.
John will read them chapters from this weeks book. He'll wrestle and give piggy-back rides, and hold them in his lap while we all eat dinner and then we'll watch a movie, or play a game and pray and read scriptures and we'll do the (yes it is dreaded) teeth brushing and pajamas battle, then he'll carry them off to bed like a sack of potatoes with a tickle and lots of giggles.
So at the end of our day when the house looks defiantly like I haven't done a thing all day, we ask ourselves "Why do we bother?"
But at the end of our lives, when the house is once again perfect and vacuumed twice daily, and the kids aren't there to drop cheerios on the floor and run naked from the bathtub, I hope we will tell ourselves "We did what mattered."
