Spilling Over

It's garage sale season, one of the best ways to get kids toys for cheap.  At a neighbor's, we recently scored a practically-new alphabet play mat comprised of foam squares.  When I put it together, I frowned.  I had made a perfect square, except for one letter hanging off of the edge.  I'm not a type-A personality in most areas of my life, but this made my eyelid tick a little.  Ah. Right. 26 letters in the alphabet.  No matter the arrangement, I would always have a square or two hanging off somewhere. 


This is how my life has been feeling lately.  No matter how I arrange things, there is always something that doesn't fit..  If I focus on playing with my kids well or taking them places, I cannot keep up with the housework.  If I focus on getting an area of the house cleaned up, the kids are cranky, hungry, and in need of attention, leaving me with mom-guilt for putting the house above the kids. If I do a little of each, and focus on getting the kitchen cleaned up, the living room is a disaster.  Laundry caught up?  My sink is overflowing with crusted dishes.


I am frustrated with the state of my house.  I can keep up on the daily tasks of dishes, laundry, garbage, and keeping the kids alive and myself dressed.  But I just can't seem to make a dent in the bigger picture.  I need to reorganize clean the clutter enough to walk in the office, my craft room, and our mud room.  I need to make our closets somewhat functional beyond being the place where I stuff things I can't find places for.  I have bins for rotating toys but I need to actually rotate the toys.  Sweeping under the dining room table is not cleaning up crumbs; a broom in a 6x4 foot area brings in a washcloth, underwear, a marching dinosaur, most of Charlie's lunch, some play-doh, at least two forks, and three pieces of mail.  The pantry, top of the fridge, behind the toaster, and underneath the kitchen window are brimming with items that kids threw, broke, wouldn't share, or tried to swallow.  There is a stain of mascara from when Charlie used my make-up like a paint brush that has been on our stairs for over a month. I have countless grocery bags full of "things to sort when I have time." Which is never.  Because if I try to complete something while my kids are awake, my piles get strewn, the areas I'm not cleaning get destroyed, and everyone ends up in tears.  After they're asleep, which some nights is close to 9:30 or 10pm,  I have nothing left in me.


I absolutely believe that, as the saying goes, I will not look back on my life and wish I had done more dishes.  Cleaning is not what matters in the big picture.  But in the smaller picture, injuring myself on Legos, stepping around piles of pillow-and-blanket forts, and peeling squashed grapes and pulverized crackers off my heels make me really crabby.  And honestly...it makes me feel like I'm not doing a good job in my own home.  Other parents have homes that are clean.  At the end of the day, I feel defeated by the projects that yet again, I didn't get done.  I feel like I've failed.


We are blessed with a home with three finished levels.  I know it's a lot to keep up with.  My kids are 2 1/2 and almost 5, and most days there are another two kids that are with us for the day. Michael works in the evening so the kids are in my care for most of the day and all of the evening until bedtime.  Throw an especially spirited child in there, and I know why my house looks the way it does. I just wish I could make all the pieces fit together without so much spilling over.


As I write this, I'm looking at a stack of cardboard bricks that Oliver has arranged into a stadium-like sculpture, with plastic zoo animals obediently standing in rows on the top.  It's reminding me of something I try to do when I struggle for perspective on frustrating nights like this.  Instead of seeing the mess, I can see the fun my children have had today.  And if I had a hand in making the mess...then I had fun, too.  And that's really what I want to be spilling over with.