I am a crappy house keeper.
It's true.
There's no other way to say it.
When I first quit my job to become a stay-at-home-mom I had all these fantasies of finally having the time to really clean my house every week. My home would look like those homes you see in magazines. Clean. Organized. Beautiful.
I'd finally have the time to really learn how to cook. My husband would be so grateful and happy about eating wonderful home cooked meals. Meals I would cook Every. Single. Day. AND I'd pack his lunches. I'd plate everything so it looked like it was cooked in a restaurant. Elegant. Refined. I'd learn to bake homemade bread!
I would do it all!
I would be the next Martha Stewart...only a whole lot nicer. And with a sense of humor.
Yes. I would be a Domestic Goddess!! I would finally have the TIME to do it all.
What I didn't count on was having the time, but not the inclination.
Or the ability.
Here's what I've learned about myself as a stay-at-home-mom: I don't do well when I have to do the same task over and over and over again.
It's boring. Monotonous. And it drives me crazy.
Quite frankly, if my job as a stay-at-home-mom was an actual JOB for which I received pay, my ass would have been fired long ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm good at the mom part of my SAHM job. My kid is engaged, happy and we have a blast together. I'm good at keeping her happy.
It's the at-home part of my SAHM job at which I suck.
The thing is, when I get on a cleaning tear I do pretty well and I sort of like it. It's nice to see chaos become order and dirty become clean. In a few hours I can have our home - the public areas anyway - looking ship-shape and ready for company.
But the cleaning never lasts. Ever. I just can't seem to MAINTAIN it.
Today I look at the living room with the dirty sippy cup and breakfast dish on the coffee table and four pairs of dirty kid socks strewn on the floor along with 463 toys, two pairs of pajamas, the junk mail that my daughter keeps taking out of the recycling bin, a random box or two, three flashlights (daughter is obsessed with them) and the empty blue bin that is supposed to contain the toys in the living room...It's then I think to myself, "For f*ck sake! Didn't I JUST clean this place like 6 days ago??? And now I have to do it AGAIN???"
It's the "again" part that always ruins it for me.
Again. Again. Always again.
Kind of like laundry.
OMG.
The laundry. How do three people generate so much EFFING laundry??? It just needs to get done again and again and again. It's NEVER EVER done. Ever. Didn't I JUST fold that pair of rainbow stripe kid leggings like yesterday and now they're dirty AGAIN???
And then there's dinner.
Does it have to happen every single night???
I only know how to cook like 4 things. And if I want to cook something new that means finding a new recipe, grocery shopping and then actually cooking something that requires me to focus on the recipe while my daughter hangs on my leg begging for snacks. I can BARELY cook the stuff I KNOW how to cook, but to do a new recipe AND manage my kid??? Not so much.
So instead I usually just make something easy for the kid, grab a bowl of cereal for myself and leave my poor husband to fend for himself
Yeah, my poor husband cooks his own dinner when he gets home from a day of meetings and work stress. Really. I am totally not kidding about this.
He should fire me.
I am NOT a Domestic Goddess.
Martha Stewart, I hate you.
I'm not either. I want to be, but it's too difficult to get that type of motivation. I clean the playroom, and walk out the door, and then one of the kids flips the bucket of trains over on the floor and then dumps out the legos... and then they WALK AWAY!!!! That drives me crazy. I think they just like having a messy house.
ReplyDeleteAnd I cook, but not much. So, it's usually pizza or fast food for dinner (I'm horrible, I know). But, it gets the job done.
It's hard to remember to just enjoy each moment when you're tripping over all the things you just cleaned up and eating a piece of pepperoni pizza for the 15th time in a week. lol. :)