Time to Care

I've been overwhelmed this week by my house, yard, and children. Today I'm in a much better place; after commiserating with a great friend, I'm reminding myself that I chose to stay home, that there's nothing I would rather be doing, and that I am incredibly blessed to have this home and this yard. This friend also helped me to question the pressure I'm putting on myself to have a sparklingly clean home, immaculately manicured yard, and perfectly well-behaved children who can do multiplication at age three. No one else expects that of me; why do I insist on feeling bad about myself when I'm not living up to these unrealistic standards in my head?

I really love doing home improvement stuff but it's hard to accomplish anything with ankle biters running around. Awhile ago I was talking to my parents (who are HGTV junkies and do-it-yourself extraordinaires) about home improvement ideas and they mentioned something about sealing the garage floor and how nice that looks. I was like, "Um, it's the garage floor. It's not exactly on the top of my priority list."

You should know that both my mom and my mother-in-law have impeccable houses--beautifully decorated and immaculately clean all the time. There's no peas smooshed into the floor, no cheerios hiding under dust bunnies in the corners, no slimy finger prints on mirrors, windows, walls, furniture.... Every time we visit one of them, I come home and look at my house and think, "I can't believe we live like this."

On the other hand, neither mom has ever given me reason to think they judge my home in its current state. (I mean, for one thing, I clean like a crazy woman before they come over!) My mom-in-law always tells me stories about how dirty their house was when they were new parents, which takes some of the pressure off. And, getting back to the sealed garage floor story, when I said, "I really don't care about my flippin' garage floor," my mom replied, "Yeah, I guess if I think back to when I had little kids, I didn't care about stuff like that either. Now I guess we have time to care."

And I think she hit the nail on the head. I simply don't have time to care if there are weeds growing in the cracks of my sidewalk, or if my basement floor is swept, or, for that matter, if the box of crayons that I cleaned up three times today gets dumped out again (that one was for you, Liz). I am too busy getting Anders down from the stool he's climbed in order to reach the knobs on the stove (!), or being a momma penguin for Isaac who has declared himself a baby penguin, or making and cleaning up a meal and then a snack, and then another meal, and then another snack, and then another meal....

This weekend my in-laws are coming. I think I just may forgo dusting the ceiling fans (that one was for you, Karen). And you know what? I bet they will still love me.