The therapy of housework

Let's face it, house work is job security for me.
The laundry...where do I get started, but the fact that it piles up and I wash it and fold it and....try to put it away means that my position is secure. The reality of five hungry people looking up with expectant and all but demanding eyes lets me know that not everyone could fill this place I hold with ease, or at any rate not with as much love. Sometimes I have the irrational desire to kick the laundry basket and look with distaste at those articles of clothing that I have folded dozens and dozens of times. And lets be real here, I have been known to cry a little at the sheer quantity, but on the other hand, after doing it for years and years, I would be sad to do it no more.  Right now chores are a large part of life. Oh those words "right now", what a harsh implication.
As I sit in the silence of the night time, devoid of little children noises that is, I listen to the best of my old faves, Roy Orbison, Gordon Lightfoot and the like. I am neither high tec enough to do a picture montage with music but in my memory photos are sliding through my brain right along with the music of "Love Hurts".

The first glimpse I had of my daughter, to her first smiles and words and steps. From her little girl prattle about animals and cookies and snow to her telling me today in her nine year old voice (talking about some girls at dance) that, "No offense to them, but they don't dance like they enjoy it" and my heart hurt because I could hear someone else in those words, not my little girl and we had a heart to heart about what it means to gossip and what to do when those around you are talking behind someone's back, even if it is prefaced with "No offense to them". I remember joking with my sisters about how you can say anything about anyone anymore if you start with "bless her heart...".
I see my baby girl sitting and doing her school with her side braid that she herself braided falling over her shoulder. She looks so beautiful and so big and my heart hurts so bad. I remember not too long ago when she would cry in her bed if I was not home to braid her hair. A lot of pictures. A lot of magic moments.

Oh I know the overall feeling of this blog lately is "treasure the moments" and all that. Well so what, it's what I write about when I feel the urge to write at all and it reminds me that this time in life is short though it feels so repetitive, and it helps me treasure the time when my children are small and incredibly needy...and hungry all the stinkin time... and enjoy it all.
Now, after my kids go to bed, I put on my extra thick industrial blue rubber gloves that literally can take as much hot water as I want to wash dishes with, and hit the dishes, the counters, the table, the floors, the spattered walls and what not with a pep in my step that makes me think, I actually enjoy it. The good and necessary acts of service should be cathartic to our souls. I just think there is so much pressure to do important things in this fast paced life that we forget the small things that carry value. Real life is a lot like this picture: imperfect, organic, revealing, frustrating, a little blah,  filled with energy and personality, likely to make you laugh....later on but not always in the moment.

 

In the words of Gordon Lightfoot:

"...and when you hold me tight, how could life be anything but beautiful.

I think that I was made for you and you were made for me."

 

And in the words of Roy Orbison:

 

"Love hurts, love scars, love wounds and mars"

 

And in the words of the Coasters:

 

"You better mop that kitchen floor, or you ain't gonna rock and roll no more.."

 

The everyday chores, I think I'm starting to embrace them. AT least more than I used to.

Good, I'm finally growing up. "Keep teaching me kids, Mama's going to get it eventually".

The best things happen at home

It is over two years living in this small house, trying hard to maintain a dining room at meals times and a school room at school times; alas, the two have finally met and married without all this on again off again nonsense. I have seeds planted in egg cartons on the windowsill

 and our three foot skeleton we call "bones" hanging from the trim, who, I am sorry to say, lost his rib cage today and his organs fell out. Our ladybug Larvae in their little land are on the shelf next to the candle sticks and my recipe books are on the shelf above all our favorite reading books...and I am content.

If adults think children learn slow when it comes to chores and homework, a semblance of obedience and sometimes basic manners, what should we say of ourselves when we have decades of learning and experience and perspective, yet perpetually are led to old habits of thinking. For me, it is the way of the world around me vs. the call of my heart.
Kids can be just plain embarrassing. Believe me, before kids I was guilty of those semi-judgmental thoughts when I would see a public dynamic between mother and child and think "my child won't behave like that" or notice a food strewn face and somewhere in my uppity pondering think "I won't let my kids go in public like that". Oh how I laugh at myself now.
On Mason's first day of gymnastics I bundled the four into the car in a hurry, allowing my three year old to go in socks as I had distinctly seen his shoes in the car the day before. The baby was a little under the weather and still in his footy pajamas. On reaching our destination I found, to the contrary, that I had actually only seen one shoe. There I was with the other gymnastic moms and dads watching my bean pole who is all arms and legs, doing gymnastics with such spastic enthusiasm that I was actually laughing aloud, with my baby in PJ's and my one shoed three year old. "I am 'that' mom" I said to myself.

The truth is that a mother can never sacrifice the moments for what a non related "public" may or may not think. Or, rather, she shouldn't.
Today I sat in the sun on the trampoline eating frozen blueberries and reading some of our favorite stories by Robert McCloskey (he wrote Blueberries for Sal). Those boys were covered in blue. Even my own fingers were stained pretty bright under the finger nails. Oh but their sweet little faces reading that book with me, asking their sweet little questions and gazing with innocence and interest at the expressive pictures. My boys were still a little blue when we had to go into town to take my daughter somewhere and I didn't even try and make excuses for myself.

We all make choices every day, many many little choices. Sometimes the children get bossed and busied around so much that they get lost in the demands of the next appointment or the next project, even if the said appointment or project is on their behalf. It doesn't hurt to let the children take life a little slower. It doesn't hurt to stop your own business with the plea of your boys "read this to me mom?"
Tonight my seven year old who by the way has been the cause of more mom embarrassing moments than I can count, held my head in his hands and said "I wuv you so much" (he still has trouble with his L's but I didn't correct this one). My three year old said "you're the best, mom" when I found his lego man in the dryer.
I took the time to sit on the couch with my daughter after the boys were abed and watch the first part of Pride and Prejudice. My husband (unable to resist P&P nonchalantly sat down with us). I saw her hand reach for her dads and then for mine and there we sat, just us three, living in the moment with the unfinished dishes in the sink and two loads of laundry in need of a folding.

So I am schooling my children at home , but really I am learning the lessons....as usual. They remind me, on days like today, that school is not bookwork, laboring over letters and figures, it is about the cultivation of an inquiring mind, a love and respect for what is around us and an ever deepening appreciation for the miracle of who we are to God and to each other. There is a lot of conventional in this world we live in. A lot of rules and regulations, of labels and demands. Not bad, mind you, or at least not intentionally bad....(I hope but am not entirely convinced).

 

Yet, let us parents never lose sight of our true purpose, or fail to recognize the gifts we've been given in our children's moments and their sweet innocent hearts.

 

The way of the world is just a little too fast paced for me. A little too dramatic and a little too negative. A little too eager to put every little person on a chart and measure them. The call of my heart, though my head sometimes convolutes the message, is to let the children be energetic and free spirited, let them laugh and be curious and be little for longer than they are allowed to be "out there".

My husband reminded me of how many seeds we planted and how concerned I was because a whole egg carton of my boys seeds didn't grow and he was watching for them every day. After one month longer than the germination period was supposed to be, little sprouts started poking through the soil. I'm so glad I didn't stop watering them even though they were the slowest of the bunch.

 

 

 

 The seeds you plant with your kids will reap a harvest even if the germination period is longer than the package says (or the book, or the internet, or the doctor, or the studies).

Let them enjoy being at home and being loved.

 

Me time

It was on Saturday last that my husband half way through the day picked up son number 2 and 3 from my own errand running car on his way home. I arrived home an hour later and my husband bounded out to help me with the baggage. He kissed me and said "so did you have some 'me time?'" I had to laugh out loud. No wonder Mason is having trouble with math with his dad thinking 4 take away two means zero. chuckle chuckle. It got me to thinking about the concept of "me time". Let's face it, a stay at home mom who has decided to homeschool her four energetic children ranging from 13 months to 9 years doesn't have a strong expectation for "me time".

However, I would be lying if I didn't need a little something, a little space, a little breathing room. This  was brought to my contemplation when on going out with the girls I sat on the far end of a long bench, opposite the end where my sister was sitting, my mom coming to sit just next to me on the tiny end unoccupied. I moved over for her and she kept moving toward me all the while my sister was scooting too. I felt suddenly claustrophobic. I realize I just needed some space, no one leaning in, clinging to my legs, needing something, whining, whispering in my ear etc. As my sister kept whispering in my ear, I found myself continuing to back away, almost to an offending degree. I had to laugh at my realization.  "Girls just give me a minute to breath."

I get it, having kids is just a little "crowding". Our culture is pervaded with this topic, but to what degree? When do we stop with the "time for me"...after damaging the children? Just like the human condition to take a positive concept and push it to an unhealthy extreme. Good parents do need time management and time for just them but what our culture doesn't need more of is "me time". It needs time spent in productive behavior, disciplined behavior; time spent evaluating and growing, changing for the better, setting ground rules and boundaries for the good of the family. There's a novel concept: "family". It isn't me anymore, it is "us". The team. We work together for each other and hopefully, to help make the world a better place. I will never forget the epiphany Anne Shirley had in Anne of Avonlea, "It is not what the world holds for you, it's what you bring to it".

To my family I want to always bring a grateful heart, full of appreciation for what they give to me just by being them. So the principles God gave us should live in our homes, not the concepts of a fallen and languishing world.

"Do unto others as you would have them do to you..."
"What you sow you shall reap..."
"Give and it will be given you..."
"Work as unto the Lord..."

Don't get me wrong, my kids go to bed at 7:00 most every night and I love the structure of our routines. They should see mom and dad liking to be together and the goals and hobbies we have on our own but "me time" doesn't make me a better mom. Perspective and gratitude make me a better mom. Sacrifice and patience make me a better mom.

By all means go out and get your toes done, get a massage or a coffee with a friend. Sit by the lake or any place of beauty and feel that fleeting sensation that I think is referred to as tranquility. Men, don't neglect those women who give so much of themselves to create an environment that is family....that is home. But lets keep it all in perspective my friends. "Me time" only is enhancing to those who already embrace what their purpose at home is and take pains to fulfill it, with the ever increasing understanding that the whole picture is greater than the moments, but the moments are choosing the colors that will be slowly and painstakingly worked into the artistry of the whole picture.