I don't usually like to complain on my blog but..... I had a bad day.
Today was going to be the beginning of my new housecleaning plan. Last week I made Madeline and I note cards with all of our daily jobs, weekly jobs, monthly jobs and so on. I had something like 15 chores to do today and I got 3 of them done.
Bradley was not feeling well today. He would fall asleep every time I would feed him and cry if I put him down. I can only take so much crying before I start feeling extremely stressed. It took me 3 hours to fold a load of laundry. (1/2 a chore done)
Madeline started out pretty excited about her chores and was doing great until it was time for piano lessons. I corrected her when she played a note wrong and she had a fit. Rather then squeeze her head off, I put myself in a timeout. Madeline sat at the piano and cried "I don't want to be out here by myself!" Sometimes putting myself in timeout is worse than putting her in timeout. While in timeout I made my bed. (1 chore done)
When Jared got home he took the baby while I did the dishes, made dinner and put away the laundry. (another chore done and the first one finished)
I have always struggled with keeping my house clean. I don't think that I ever really learned how. I don't want to have a messy house. It makes me crazy. I just don't know what to do. When I set a goal or come up with a plan and fail like today it makes it that much hard for me.
I'm sure that I have a lot of problems but I think that my biggest one is that my goals are not realistic. When we lived in our apartment I had a system that worked so great but I have not been able to make it work in our house.
I also notice that I make the rule for myself that until I have done my list for the day I cannot do anything that I like to do, that includes playing with Madeline. I told her that we would make play dough today and of course we didn't. I probably do that to her everyday. Luck for me she doesn't know what a good mom is supposed to be like.
I need help. Does anyone out there have any words of wisdom?
4 comments:
Hang in there. It took me almost a year after having my 3rd baby to get to the point where I could do the kid things I needed to and clean my house. I would get so stressed out after Brooklyn was born because I felt like I could get nothing done all day. I think I got around to cleaning the toilets, vacuuming once a month. I know it sounds gross, but it is the truth. I was always in a bad mood because I felt like I could get nothing done, and so because of my bad mood, my kids and husband were in a bad mood. I had to change something so I just stopped caring about a clean house (which was hard), only did what was totally necessary, and I was a lot happier, as was my family. Now that Brooklyn is older, or I am more used to having 3 kids, I can finally get most everything done that I need. I can clean my toilets and vacuum once a week now. Good luck with it all!
Cleaning the house can wait. Your Children cannot. do as many thing s with them as you can and make as many memories with them as you can. I have never heard a of a mother on her death bed saying she wished she had taken more time clean her house!
You are amazing with what you do with your kids!
Love ya all!
You really should go easy on yourself. It takes time. The beauty of the cards, and having a plan is that if it doesn't happen this week, it will come around again next week. It is a lot harder to stick to a plan with a baby that has a plan of his own. Good Luck!
Liz, I have to tell you thank you for that post. I have been feeling exactly the same for the past year but extremely these last couple weeks. I cry all the time becuase of it. I hate it. I hate having a dirty house. I try to spend lots of time with the kids but the times I don't I feel so guilty and by the time I go to bed the house is back to where it was before. It's so stressful. I figured the house will never be clean until the boys are in school. (that is if we don't have another baby by then) but the pressure I feel and the guilt I put on myself makes me so unhappy. I feel stuck. Then I read my scriptures and it says, 'get your house in order'. ..I guess I can try a little at a time and do the best that I can. Anyway, hang in there. and thanks for that post.
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