Always behind and letting go

It seems that a feature of being a mother of small children is the feeling that I'm always behind. Maybe I'm caught up on the dishes, but the laundry isn't done. In fact the clothes in the dryer have been there for two days. At least they're dry and clean, but also very wrinkled. Or maybe I have dinner ready when Jason comes home, but I didn't get the bathrooms cleaned. Or maybe I picked up the toys, but the snack dishes are still out and crumbs are still all over the floor. There is this constant feeling that I'm behind.

And then there's the problem that I have my own interests and like to spend my few hours or minutes of free time (on a daily basis) to do something that I really enjoy, like read, or bake or knit. So I get to the end of the day (at 8:30PM) and want to spend time on myself instead of finishing the cleaning tasks I didn't get done for the day or pick up the random stuff that isn't in it's proper home. Yesterday afternoon both kids were napping at the same time. A rarity as I mentioned in another post, but they were both napping and I had some unexpected time to myself. I could have cleaned the bathrooms, that's on my to do list, but I really wanted to make pie. Yummy, yummy pie. From scratch. Everything from scratch. I was spoiled by pie from scratch growing up, so store-bought pie was not an option, nor was ready-made pie crust. Nothing ready-made comes anywhere close to a good homemade pie crust. So I made fresh cherry pie. And you know what, I had fun and our family enjoyed some good pie after dinner. The bathrooms still aren't clean, but we have some pie.

So it comes down to more decisions involving a trade-off...is the happiness I will experience from making and enjoying pie outweigh the unhappiness I feel from having a semi-dirty bathroom? In this case, I came out positive, but I know that if the bathrooms were in a much further state of uncleanness I would go crazy every time I go in them and would be unhappy. Maybe tomorrow the bathrooms will win, but for the time being, it was the pie.

But I'm still behind. I never quite catch up, but I've learned that that's okay. I just have to let go of certain things to maintain my sanity. After all, I do live with three Kirchhoff men and if I didn't just let go of certain things I certainly would go insane. I could spend all my "free time" cleaning and tidying, but I sure wouldn't be happy. And although I do a lot of my cleaning and tidying when the kids are awake, I also spend time with them, reading and playing in the sandbox. A clean house can come later, but sanity is important now and the time with the kids, once it passes, I can never get it back again. So I learn to live with the feeling of always being behind, and just let go and live.