We know we can’t do everything, so why do we try?
More importantly, why do we constantly beat ourselves up for not being able to do it all? I know there are countless times a week when I mentally berate myself for not getting X, Y and Z done. Am I alone here or is this pretty typical?
It seems like guilt is just second nature for many of us, particularly females. For me personally though, I think guilt is, sadly, one of my closest companions. Am I taking on more than I can handle? Trying to do so many things that none of them gets done very well?
Probably.
So what, if anything, can I do about this? Cut some stuff out? Start saying “no” more often? Set alarms for myself?
I haven’t figured out the solution yet.
In the meantime, I would love to find just one woman who is happy with the way she balances her life and feels relatively no guilt or regret and learn her secret. Does such a person exist? Everyone I know is over-taxed, over-scheduled, over-worked and on their way to a slow burnout.
Juggling work, family, friends, leisure time and other commitments is exhausting. I realize it’s just part of life, but there’s got to be an easier way to balance everything. My life feels very out of balance right now.
I am responsible for four school-age children during the week, making sure that everyone gets on the bus in the morning, has their homework done, takes a shower, eats good food, gets to bed at a decent time, possesses clean clothing, gets delivered and picked up from their activities and receives some semblance of personal attention in the few hours we have between school and bed time. I’m also trying to grow a business during an extremely slow economic time, which sucks up most of my extra hours with all the marketing, writing and researching.
Along with that, I do book keeping for the family business, advertising and proofreading for a scholarly journal, blog most week days, and try to maintain a humongous old farm house with 5 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, as well as a several-acre yard. Between those things, my church activities, a bit of down time here and a couple tax-return activities, including an audit, I’m having a hard time pulling it all off. It seems like I’m working almost all the time, if I’m not making meals for the kids, helping them with their homework, going to volleyball games or running errands. Even on weekends, when the kids are often at their dad’s house, I am crazy-busy.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this as I’m sure the guilt-ridden juggling act is standard for many of us. How do you cope? Do you have any special tools (Merry Maids, a planner, a weekly baby-sitter)? When you feel your life becoming unbalanced, how do you take inventory and decide what has to go?
Discuss!
*** Cross-posted on Parenting By Trial and Error.
get on the bus! NOW!
Up until this year, getting my boys off to school in the morning was a fairly simple process. Only two had school in the morning, and a bus picked them up half a block from the house. They didn’t even have to be on the bus until almost 8 AM–manageable even for non-morning-person me. William had afternoon young fives last year, so he, his little brother and I had a nice leisurely morning together before he got on the bus. And if I did miss out on sleep, Owen, the youngest boy, and I would settle down for an afternoon nap as soon as Will was gone. Easy peasy.
But this year? Things are a bit different. This year my eldest son Jacob started middle school, so he has to be on the bus by 7:15. Isaac and William, 10 and 6, both start at 8:20 but because the elementary school is within a mile, there is no bus. It’s a 10-15 minute walk with no major streets to cross and sidewalks all the way, so I’ve been having them walk it most days. But once the weather starts getting bad, that’s not always going to be an option. And since my husband works out of town most of the time, he’s not around to help out with either driving or kid-wrangling.
Sure, putting them in the car and driving them isn’t that huge a hassle, except that now we’ve also got the baby (6 months) and Owen, now three, to contend with. On the handful of days we’ve driven, something is always happening to make us late: a blowout diaper, a tantrum, a forgotten backpack.
I know, I know, this is just part of life in a larger family–at least those larger families that use school (feeling a little jealous of homeschoolers right now…). But I miss our old leisurely mornings, and I know it’s just going to get more complicated as the kids all move into different phases of their lives. Anyone out there feeling my pain? How do you deal with the school-morning shuffle?
My house is a mess.
It’s true.
And I have only myself to blame.
A few years ago, while I was at work, a cleaning service came to my house - the wrong house - and cleaned it.
Twice.
The first time it happened, it was a little creepy.
I noticed right away, when I was coming in the (unlocked) front door, that the entry way rug was not where I’d placed it, and that some junk was piled in the corner. Then I saw the hand written note, “sorry, we cleaning wrong house.”
All the stuff that had been scattered around the house when I’d left for work, you know the junk that gets dumped here and there in a household of five kids and two working parents … was piled in corners. And on sofas. But … the floors, walls, ceiling fans, counter tops, mirrors, toilets …. were clean. Sparkling clean. Cleaning Fairy clean.
But creepy, yeah. I was weirded out that someone had been in my house, moving my things around.
But I got over it. And a few months later it happened again.
This time I was ready for them. Of course, I wasn’t expected the Cleaning Fairy to ever come again, but the clutter happened to be put away before I left for work that morning. When I came home this time, they were still at it. And doing a brilliant job, might I add.
After much discussion …. or lack of discussion, due to a significant language barrier, and a phone call to the
Cleaning Fairies’ boss, they finally understood that they were, once again, cleaning the wrong house.
Of course, now, in hindsight I have to wonder … WHY did I tell them they were at the wrong house? WHY didn’t I just thank them and tell them to keep up the good work?
Most importantly, though: WHY did I not sue them for damages in the equivalent of a lifetime of free housecleaning?
Despite keeping my house unlocked and picked up, they’ve never come back. I’ve really mourned that. Especially when I come home from work … to the same dirty house I left.
It’s sad, really.
(originally posted at http://www.losingmycrackers.blogspot.com/)
(originally posted at http://losingmycrackers.blogspot.com/)
I’ve added something new to my diet this week — green smoothies. You see, all of my family members really like Naked juice (even my non fruit and veggie eater) but at $3.99 a bottle, well seriously, do you think I can afford that? So in my ongoing quest to easily and affordably get healthy food into our diet, I’ve begun making green smoothies.
My first attempt was successful. The end result was a blender full of thick green … stuff … that looked and smelled like smooshed up kiwis (it was actually 2 bananas, an orange, a whole lot of fresh spinach and about 2 cups of water). All but two of my family members tried it and they all liked it well enough to have more.
Years ago, I worked at Byerly’s restaurant. A few of my coworkers, when bored, would experiment with making various concoctions of “blender salad.” Who knew just how ahead of their time they really were?
My latest green smoothie attempt, unfortunately, will go in the record book as “combinations to avoid.” It all sounded good as I was putting it in the blender … bananas, blueberries, a peach and romaine lettuce. In fact, several of the suggested combinations of fruit/greens listed romaine lettuce. Let me tell you … it was the color of mud. Plenty of tasty things are the color of mud - meatloaf, chocolate, iced coffee even. Cold, sweet (and thick) romaine lettuce tasting smoothie that is the color of mud … not so tasty.
After moping for a few days, I’m ready to try again. I have lettuce, chard, beet greens and spinach in the garden ready to be picked, and a bunch of fruit in the refrigerator all waiting to be made into more blender salads green smoothies.
Folk often ask how I get anything done with all my kids milling around… and I think they mean beyond the everyday-ness of cleaning, clothing and feeding kids. Those things happen but we manage to do a whole lot of other stuff apart from the mundane and I thought I would blog a few ideas, se7en tips that spring to mind and work for us.Some projects are a lot more fun for everyone and some are pure drag - some people love sorting and clearing clutter and others would do arts and crafts till the cows come home - we all have our strengths and weaknesses and we need to take that into account! Some jobs are good and some are bad - the enthusiasm level is really up to me. My kids love any project… even cleaning out the garage is a blast for them.
- You Don’t Have To Lower Your Standards: When I do decide to conquer a project on our “To-Do List” I don’t ship our kids off to the country for a few days, or even to a neighbor! They are part of our family and we work together - maybe not all with the same focus and direction! I want our kids to grow up as part of life and I certainly can’t do everything while our kids are sleeping there just aren’t enough hours in a “night.” I like projects and working on tasks and I think our kids have learnt to like them alongside me. That being said as they work they learn and master new skills, we don’t have to have settle for semi-clean cars!
- Chores Will Get Done: My great epiphany here is that I discovered that chores take as long as you let them. Dinner can take over an hour to prepare or if we are busy it takes fifteen minutes to cook a pot of pasta, grate some cheese and make a salad while the pasta is cooking. We have a pretty good chore system going - it works for us, but I guess that’s a whole “nother post”
- Be Patient With Your Kids: Sometimes they just need your time and attention… more than you need to sand an old table. Sometimes a baby needs to be held, sometime you just need to pay some mindful attention and read a story. Very often a toddler needs help in the bathroom. It can be maddening when you have planned to do a project and it is thwarted by a short grumpy person or a million interruptions. In the scheme of things it doesn’t really matter if you have to wait another day for completeness.Otherwise kids have a pretty short attention span - use this to your advantage. My kids are usually unstoppably there to begin with and then wander off midway and then are back for the grand finale. The one or two that linger throughout tend to be really keen and so can be given tasks to really help.
- Don’t Try And Build A Barn: I once read a sporting book and the athletes were told to rest the day before a big race so the one chap didn’t run but helped his extended family to raise a barn. Needless to say his performance wasn’t exactly optimal!!! And we have an expression in our house: “Don’t build a barn.” This is the hardest thing for me, I like to start and finish in a day I am prepared to miss food and sleep in order to get a job done but a number of other people in our family don’t have this drive - just where did that work ethic go!!! Some jobs take weeks and I have had to learn to accept that. And while I like to conquer and declutter the whole house in a a day I have learnt to do it bit by bit… Start enough to finish in a day and leave it at that.
- Keep The Basics Running Smoothly: Our house has a routine that we rock too and it is far easier to just keep going with that flow than to re-arrrange everything for a project. If you are planning an all day project, like a major garden frenzy then think about snacks and lunch before you get going so that at three pm when your workers are dropping like flies you don’t say: “I wonder what we should have for lunch?”
- Planning Works Better For Us: I used to start a project and just ramble on with it. You know, rake some leaves and then that would lead to weeding, digging cutting rearranging, planting and… before you know it we would have a whole new garden in a day. Now I need to plan for success. I need to plan what we are going to do and I need to share the plan and if it is a long arduous task then there needs to be a tangible reward for all of us.
- Set Yourself Up to Succeed: What I have done is amend our “To-Do List” to something more realistic. Instead of thinking that I need to do every craft that I see and try every craft that I come across I can just appreciate someone else’s work. We had so many crafty projects pending that I was burdened with guilt. You would be amazed how a pile of pottery waiting to be painted can stop you from ever getting onto other things! I was saving a couple of projects for a rainy day only on rainy days we never got to them we were far too busy building forts and reading books. I passed them on and we were free of the burden!
- Keep It Light: The idea of “help” from little people can often send me reeling to the couch with the threat of never ever starting a project again. Needless to say you have to take the help from whence it comes, so to speak, and pop that into your plan of action! If you are planning to rearrange the furniture I have to first consult folk! If you want to declutter a room I have found that my kids are very eager to help as soon as I mention that other people, that live very near by, have no toys - then it is easier: decluttering with a purpose!
That’s it! Don’t despair things can get done and if they don’t well make sure you are far too busy having fun to get them done!
I know, how could I possibly have the blues in the summertime, a time of long, sun-filled days, swimming, camping, boating, campfires and leisurely days? Summer is my favorite time of year. The kids are home, the activities are numerous and fun and I get my gardening time in.
Except that none of this is happening, other than the kids being home. So far, this summer vacation has been filled with rain, cool temperatures, doctor’s appointments, dental visits, occasionally listless kids and crazy working hours for me. As a work-from-home freelance writer, I’ve been running at top speed for the past several weeks and it’s starting to catch up with me.
I had all these grandiose plans (OK, so they weren’t exactly grandiose) to have a loose schedule for the five of us, ensuring that we all knew what we were doing when, but I haven’t even had time to think about the schedule, much less make it. In a (possibly semi-misguided) effort to round up more work for the fall when all four of my kids will actually be in school all day, every day, I’ve been running my tail off trying to get clients, assignments, work, etc., as well as working super-hard on my blog. It makes me feel good to be this proactive, but it’s also incredibly time-consuming.
My garden is still completely barren and now it seems like it’s probably too late to plant it. That’s mostly my own fault because I hate the planting part — love everything else, but not that — and so I’ve been putting it off since I’ve been so busy.
My house is not even close to being in the kind of shape it should be most of the time because I’m usually holed up in my office not paying attention to it. (And if you’re under the assumption that I don’t spend any time with my kids, that’s just not the case. They spend a lot of their time in my office with me, often all four of them at once, which is probably a lot of the reason why my work takes much longer than it otherwise would.)
Next week I will be gone on a church-related convention, which will no doubt be a nice breather for me, but I’m going to miss my twins’ 11th birthday while I’m gone, which makes me (and them) sad. By the time I get back home, summer vacation will be 1/3 over!
So, I’m trying to think of my trip as a transition time, of sorts. I’m taking my computer along to squeeze in any work I can, so I’m going to take advantage of the hours on the plane and finally create that loose schedule. Hopefully by the time I get back the weather will finally be conducive to go to the lake and camp out. I’m also going to attempt to get my garden planted this weekend so I can at least get some fruits and vegetables yet this summer.
If I don’t take the reigns here, the summer is going to fly by in the same manner it has been and I’m going to continue in my summertime blues mood, which is not good for anyone. Like everything in life, it’s all about balance, something I need to find ASAP. Time with the kids, time to tend to the house, time for work, time to garden, time to myself…figuring out what fits where is going to be my biggest challenge in the next couple months.
How do you find balance in your life?
Sarah E. Ludwig is the mom of four mostly wonderful kids, fraternal twin girls (11 next week) and two boys (nearly-7 and 5) and works from home as a freelance writer. They live in a remote area of the country where they can enjoy campfires in their backyard, the kids can sleep in the pop-up camper or tents at night if they want to and there is virtually no traffic of any sort, let alone people, nearby. She also blogs at Parenting By Trial and Error.
This is a cross-post from my blog. I thought people with larger families could most certainly relate!
One of my secrets to happier motherhood? Make your bed.
Or keep your dining room table clear. Or sweep under your dining-room table regularly. Or make sure your dressers aren’t overstuffed with clothes so they don’t shut all the way. The point is, all of us have that one thing (or half a dozen things) that drives us crazy. Whether yours is crumbs on the counter or rooms where half the lightbulbs are burned out, taking care of your biggest crazy-makers (BEFORE they get to the point of making you crazy) sets the whole mood for the day.
For me, that one thing happens to be making my bed. I used to roll out of bed in the morning, look at the rumpled sheets and blankets and think “eh, what’s the difference? I’m just going to be messing it up again in 15 hours.” But I spend a lot of time in my bedroom, even during the day, and I found that every time I went back in, the sight of that unmade bed made me feel…slumpy. It made the house feel messy even if the house wasn’t particularly messy. It made me feel disorganized. And every time I sat on the bed (like I am now with my laptop) I would feel like crawling under the sheets and going back to sleep.
I’m far from being a neat freak, but I began to realize that I require a certain level of cleanliness in order to function. I spend most of my day in my home, and if it feels too messy or cluttered I just want to retreat and watch bad TV instead of being productive. I also realized that it pays to stay on top of mess by constantly straightening up instead of saving it all for some mythical 2-hour stretch when I’ll be able to do a big clean. So four or five years ago I started making my bed every day, as soon as I could after waking up. What a difference. It took a couple of weeks to really get into the habit, but soon I found myself looking forward to making my bed–it feels like tearing out a fresh sheet of notebook paper, clean and crisp and full of possibility. Now, no matter how the rest of the house looks, my bedroom is a neat and pleasant retreat. When I go to bed, it’s so satisfying to pull back the smooth covers instead of climbing into a tangled mess of sheets. And it really makes a big difference in my mood.
I have other “must do” chores, too. For example, I really like my bathroom to look clean (with four boys this means wiping down toilets at least daily) and it’s important to me to have a clean kitchen sink (which I realized after doing FlyLady many years ago). I also Can. Not. Stand. to have couch pillows and throw blankets all over the living room so I stop a few times a day to toss pillows back on the furniture and fold blankets. I call these things my “triggers”—I’m actually crankier to my kids and anxious when my sink is messy or there are sofa pillows on the floor. So I try to stay on top of it through the day—and it all begins with making the bed.
One note, though: I have my older kids do a lot of chores, but I almost never put them in charge of my “trigger” tasks. It’s too important to me that they’re done right–not to mention promptly.
Do you have housecleaning “triggers” that can make or break your mood? What are they? How long did it take you to figure them out?
–Meagan Francis is the author of Table for Eight and writes regularly about her family here.
For a variety of reasons, we are moving back to Chicago this spring. That means I’m once again looking for housing for myself, my husband, our four boys and now baby Clara. (No pets…yet.)
We’ll be renting for at least a year, so this isn’t a permanent decision by any means. Yet a year can seem like a long time when your home just doesn’t “work”, for whatever reason. Because we’ll be living in a city with a fairly high cost of living, we’re going to have to make some sacrifices, which means deciding what things are must-haves, and what we can live without.
I mused aloud on Twitter that I wasn’t sure whether to rank location above size or vice versa, and got passionate responses on both sides of the debate. Some people are adamant that I’d lose my mind unless we have plenty of space to spread out; others argued that being in a good location is the #1 most important thing. My kids will be using the public schools, so I’m limiting my search to areas with good ones. Within those areas there is a lot of variation between more “fun” neighborhoods with lots of parks within walking distance and easy access to shopping, and neighborhoods that are more spread out and further from common areas but have bigger lots. So I’m trying to decide whethe we’d be happier with a larger private yard or being closer to community parks.
As far as square footage goes: the space aspect did seem important at first, but then I got to thinking. When we lived in a 2000-square-foot home with four bedrooms, one of the bedrooms was NEVER used unless we had guests. Right now we live in a house that’s probably closer to 1400 square feet with three smallish bedrooms, and it doesn’t seem too small at all. The only real issue is that there’s nowhere in the house the kids can go let off steam without me hearing them yelling; but I think that’s due more to the layout than anything. The staircase to the second story is open to the living room, and the bedrooms all open to the staircase, so there’s no hallways or anything to muffle sounds. A separate family room, or preferably a finished basement would be a great “kid hangout” and lower the noise pollution on the main level.
Then there’s the bathroom thing. In theory I know we’d be better off with as many bathrooms as possible. Yet we’ve lived the last 8 months with one bathroom and nothing bad has happened. In fact, last weekend our one toilet got backed up while we had houseguests–a total of 10 people in the house–and it took 12 hours for us to get it unstuck. It wasn’t the end of the world, though my sister and I did have to take kids in carloads to McDonald’s to use the facilities.
Number of bedrooms seems pretty unimportant too. Right now the kids’ room assignments are fluid things; the boys meander back and forth between the two kids’ bedrooms depending on who they’d rather spend time with. Clara sleeps in our room and probably will for another year at least. On the other hand, it sure would be nice to have a fourth or fifth bedroom to use as an office, guest room, etc. Nice…but is it necessary? Or would it sit empty like our fourth bedroom used to?
If you were looking for a home today, how would you prioritize? What can’t you live without? Do you have a set square footage in mind, or do you think layout is more important? To your mind, is the more space the merrier, or do you prefer cozier quarters? Is there a number of bedrooms or bathrooms you absolutely need? I’d love to hear about it!
–Meagan Francis is an author and mom of five. She writes about her family at her blog.
Now that summer vacation is looming, I’m being faced with the prospect of making three meals a day for four children, one of whom is extremely picky. It stresses me out just thinking about it.
I’m not a cook at the best of times, but trying to come up with creative, easy, fast meals that all my kids will like every day during summer vacation is difficult. The standards right now are macaroni and cheese, pizza (frozen and homemade), spaghetti, soup, sandwiches and tacos. When I try something new, at least one of them complains and only eats a bite or two.
So, here’s my challenge to you: Do you have any great, kid-friendly recipes that are fast and easy? That’s a lot of requirements, I know, but if it takes a lot of effort, I won’t do it. I’ve always said that if I could have my choice between a housekeeper and a cook, I’d take the cook a million times over. This feeling has only been reinforced by picky eaters and multiple complaints when I do actually spend time on a new dish.
Please, take pity on a clueless cook and post your recipes here. We can all benefit from new ideas!
Sarah is the mom of 10-year-old twin girls, a 6-year-old boy and a 5-year-old boy. She works from home as a freelance writer and blogs at http://ParentingByTrialandError.com.
* Originally posted at http://parentingbytrialanderror.com
I got the idea for this post from one of my new favorite blogs, The Meanest Mom. Thank you to Jana for the inspiration.
Guilty As Charged:
1. If we don’t have to go anywhere, we’re usually in our pajamas, most or all of the day.
2. When I’m trying to get something done that requires intense concentration for my writing business, I use the TV and/or computer as a baby-sitter.
3. I throw away toys that keep getting left out, especially if there are teeny pieces involved, even more especially if I keep stepping on said teeny pieces. Annoying toys often mysteriously “go missing.”
4. My attic harbors bags and bags of my girls’ old clothes, some of which have been ruined by a leaky roof, and all of which need to be pitched.
5. Sometimes I hide in my closet so I can talk on the phone without interruption.
6. I almost never make my bed and neither do my kids. Unless we’re changing the sheets or company is coming.
7. I often eat the kids’ holiday candy, and I feel absolutely no guilt or shame.
8. I hide food that I don’t want to share with my kids and eat it when they’re in bed.
9. When I don’t feel like making supper, I institute “Fend For Yourself” night, which means the kids can eat whatever they want.
10. I put the kids to bed way earlier than normal sometimes, just so I can have a breather.
11. I let Logan mix the Play-Doh together until it becomes an unsightly shade of gray.
12. If the girls’ clothes go through the laundry inside-out, I don’t fix them, I fold them up and leave them that way.
13. I never, ever iron.
14. I say, “Hang on, I’ll be right there,” when I’m in the middle of something, hoping that the kid who called me will forget what he/she wanted.
15. The best way to deal with leftovers that have piled up is to have “Refrigerator Regurgitation” night.
Your turn to share! What are your “dirty little secrets” for coping with the kids?
Sarah is a recently-divorced mom of four awesome kids and a freelance writer. She loves reading and sunsets, but rarely has time to indulge in either. She’s grateful that her former mother-in-law has no computer expertise whatsoever, leaving little danger of her coping methods ever being discovered.
This post originally appeared at Parenting By Trial and Error.
