So I am trying to get the house in order for Thanksgiving company. Not that anyone really cares if I have scrubbed the bottom of the toilet around the little bolt in that groove, but it makes me feel better! I keep up with my house and cannot relax when it is dirty and cluttered. I am learning to live with some of it (the alternative would be death!) and trying to not let it get me stressed. I went through a severe post pardum depression that was on the brink of suicide and I ended up with a psychiatrist. All of my prayers and scripture quoting was not enough to restore my serotonin levels to normal. The psychiatrist told me that my expectations had not adjusted to my family size! I try to remind myself of this when the little ones are spinning through the house like little tornadoes! I suppose a lot of my issues with cleaning stress comes from my childhood. I came from pack-rat clutterers that expected ME to clean everything. Hmmm...here I am 25 years later still doing all the cleaning and feeling that same stress I did as a child. Some inner healing and prayer counseling is definitely in order! I have to forgive my parents regularly for my judgements toward them and repent for my blame.
Nevertheless, I am a mom of 7 kids and an elderly grandmother so cleaning is a major part of my life. I do have chore assignments, but that in itself is a chore! I need a foreman (woman)! That would make life so much easier and more organized, but I live in the "real world".
Today's work started in the kitchen and I had planned on doing floors. Kelly will be coming with her seven children (yes, I have a friend with seven children) and Elizabeth will be here too. I figured I would clean up the boys' room since there is a large play area in there and that would reduce chaos in the rest of the house. While I was cleaning the kitchen, I sent Jake and Sarah to play in the play area. You would think they'd play with the billions of toys in that room, but NOOOOOOO...they had to climb to the top of the book case and pull down all the games and books (about 75-100) and scatter them across the room. This set me back an hour and a half. I decided that we will eat from the tables and not worry about scrubbing the floors!
In the mean time, I remind myself that they will all grow up one day and leave home. While I will have the opportunity to use this time to keep my house just as clean as I can get it and have it stay that way, I have this feeling that I will long for the days when my kids were climbing the walls and leaving hand prints all over them! Then, the quest for grandchildren...
One of the games we found!
"Is your chore done?"
"Yes Maam!"
No comments:
Post a Comment