survivormom

Does anyone remember the days of laundering for one...or perhaps even post-marriage laundry bliss - sitting with your cute little pile of his and hers - cheerfully folding those 1-2 warm and fluffy, fresh from the dryer loads each week? Well, after three babies (if your house functions like ours), it will look like your laundry room vomited clothes all over the house. Currently, I have three overflowing baskets (plus a pile on my couch) of crumpled up and crammed and wrinkled clean laundry, just screaming to be fluffed or ironed or, for crying out loud, folded or hung up and put away! Those joyful housekeeping days are over.

But...I am proud to announce that my downstairs is clean now. That will probably change about .03 seconds after my children wake up in the morning, but, for now, I'm golden. My husband is out of town for a week, and I'm being held prisoner in my own home by three little people who refuse to sleep, so, I'm basically amazing. haha..

The good part about the internet is that I can show a few pictures or write a few sentences about my day at home with the monsters children, and you can all think that I have my stuff together and raising my angelic children is always easy breezy and filled with joy. The truth is, however, that I struggle daily. I don't have it together. I do my best, but, honestly, it's HARD. My kids are alive and healthy, yes. Thank GOD! We are incredibly blessed and many moments are filled with joy, but what I don't take pictures of and share are all the minutes during the day that I spend trying to model kindness and selflessness for my 4 year-old who turns everything into a competition and refuses to include her little sister in anything. What you don't see are the countless times I find myself scooping up my 2-year-old because she is battling tough emotions that are too much for her to handle. She's sad because her daddy isn't here. She's mad because her big sister won't share her toys. She's frustrated because she's too small to do it by herself. She's angry because Mommy won't let her jump off the couch. She's grouchy because she hasn't been sleeping enough. She's hurting because she just scraped her knee or hit her head for the twelve-hundredth time. She's embarrassed because she just had an accident in her tutu. What you don't see are the moments when I'm too exhausted from caring for two sick babies through the night that I lash out at them in anger because I'm just too tired to deal with it. My heart is broken almost daily when I am reminded that I can't handle sleep deprivation with grace.

I love my kids, but even an "easy" day is exhausting. It's impossibly difficult to be everything to everyone. When I think about mothering, I understand why God created a woman's brain the way that He did. At any given moment, I am simultaneously thinking about six hundred different things - the kids, the chores, the errands, etc. I realize that these are all normal parts of life and that every mother struggles with these same things, but it is incredibly overwhelming. My family is 1,200 miles away, and my husband isn't here. I haven't had an adult conversational in weeks. An effort to get out of the house is stifled by transporting three small children, playing referee and doctor more than Mommy, and having to run errands for groceries and diapers. The kids are whiny and clingy and needy, and I feel about the same. So, what really happens when Daddy is gone for a week?

1. A little bit of this.
2. Plus this. Times two. (That's about 3 full loads of laundry in the basket. Plus one in the dryer. Plus one hanging up. Plus one in the wash. And that doesn't even count the load on the couch. Or the two baskets full in my room. Or the suitcase I still haven't completely unpacked from our trip to Texas over three weeks ago..)
3. I make my favorite pie. And eat the whole thing. By myself. And I don't feel one bit guilty.
4. Lots of PBS.
5. Lots of crying and yelling. Mostly, but not completely, by the kids.
6. 300 trees are killed so Riley can get her coloring fix. Don't hate.
7. Peanut butter and jelly for dinner. at 10 pm.
8. Kyle cuts 6 teeth at once. Samantha busts her nose. Riley has an emotional meltdown.
9. Kyle wakes up to eat at 2:15am, and Samantha tags along. Kyle finally falls back asleep at 4:15am, and Samantha wakes him up. I kick Samantha out of my bed. Samantha throws a tantrum in the hallway. Everyone is awake at 4:30am. We have a party. I am angry. We are alerted to DEFCON 1. Everyone settles by 4:45am, and we all survive.
10. Daddy is not allowed to ever leave the house again. 

But, thrown in with the struggles are little moments of sticky hands playing with my hair. Sweet giggles filling the air. Bright eyes showing me the picture they drew just for me. Sleepyheads climbing in my lap with a book. Tiny voices asking me to dance or calling me back to their bed for one more hug and kiss. These are the moments that make my efforts worth it. That remind me to keep pushing onward. To try harder. To be better. Just for them. Because they're worth it.

But I don't like doing laundry anymore.