Hi friends.
It’s the day after Mother’s Day. It’s a gorgeous sunny morning here, much like it was yesterday. Only difference—the kids are back in school. They’ve been on break for two weeks and I found it mentally exhausting trying to do too many things. Or be too many things. We don’t go away on holiday, and I hate sitting in the house with them when they are on break, so I wanted to make the most of it and get out of the house.
Of course, my eldest is becoming a homebody because he feels he must be on his Switch 24/7, which we don’t even allow. I typically use this break to go through their wardrobes and work on our donation pile. I never got around to doing my youngest’s drawers, but we did fix my son’s in one day which was impressive.
A few days in, I had to stop beating myself up about not getting other work done. I think I am still hardwired to focus my attention on them when they are here like when they were babies. If that’s the way my brain operates, who am I to rush that? In my slowing down, I started to notice the pattern of my day:
wake up, head downstairs (or write in my journal, more on that another time)
turn on the oven, maybe wash dishes
prep my mushrooms; make my mis en place for scramble
cut my plantain and heat up the stove
cook the tofu scramble, plantains, mushrooms and toast
feed the family and wash the dishes.
blur (maybe write? never really reading)
vacuum the living and dining room (and the rest of the house every few days)
clean the toilet (i’m particular about toilets)
wash laundry and hang outside to dry (glorious sun!)
vacuum again
get groceries
cook dinner
wash dishes
bed
I distinctly told my kids to wake up around 8am or later because we aren’t getting ready for school anymore. So of course that didn’t start happening until this past Friday HAHA.
So much of my time is spent cleaning, and I don’t know if I love that or not. Well, I know I don’t love it, but I don’t like that it occupies most of my waking activity. In trying to carve out time for me, I’m still actively cleaning. The women in my family didn’t spend this much time, but that’s because it didn’t just fall on the shoulders of one person. I don’t have much to show for it. It’s lived in and that’s cool, but so much of it still needs a place or we need to pare down more. Am I stuck in a loop of busywork? Cleaning up after young kids is Sisyphus and his boulder. Just the boulder part, not the killing visitors and cheating death part.
My time chunks feel heavily imbalanced. Far too much is spent on housework, which isn’t part of motherhood/parenting, but ends up feeling that way because if I were taking care of myself alone I would complete these tasks in an hour a week vs four hours a day. And it’s tiring. I think I fooled myself into thinking watching shows while I cook/wash dishes counts as down time, but it certainly isn’t. I’m actively doing at least two things at once while enjoying shows. I like to cook, but cooking requires attention. And fielding 50-11 questions from two kids, almost always simultaneously while watching, while cooking and cleaning makes it stressful.