October 13, 2006
I had this whole thing about how I was going to update every day of this pregnancy. I think I said the same thing the last couple of times too. I don't know what makes me think that for some reason this time I'm going to be a bundle of raw energy, able to do preschool pickups/dropoffs, launder the kids' clothes, keep up with 20-30 hours of work at my actual paying job, make dinner every night, and then also find time for doing journal entries, all while dealing with a small passenger that is sucking up what remaining available energy I would normally have left.
All of which is a way of saying, frequent updates might not be happening for awhile here.
I'm actually at the library right now. I've been hanging out here in the mornings on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays when both kids are at school at the same time. Today I have an impending work deadline, so I probably should have gone back home, but frankly, going back home sucks. The sheer amount of stuff that I could possibly be doing during the all-too-brief period of time that I have alone without the kids is just overwhelming. Whenever I do go back home to get some work done, I always tell myself sternly that I am going to go straight to the office, sit down and work, and do nothing else for two hours until it is time to leave to pick up the kids. That is all I will do. Nothing else!
But you know, I walk through the door and notice that Sunday's newspaper is still strewn all over the dining room table, and it'll only take a couple minutes to pick that up and toss it in the recycling, so I do that, and then on the way to the recycling bin I see that there are crumbs all over the counters from breakfast, so I take a few minutes to wipe those up, and then I sweep the floor, because it's unsymmetric to have clean counters and crumb-strewn floors (this is not nearly as anal-retentive as it sounds and I know that some of you know what I'm talking about here). Then as I'm putting the broom away I see that the kids' PJs are still laying in front of the TV so I grab those, and I grab the dirtied kitchen washcloth that I wiped the counters with for good measure, and I don't want to waste a trip to the laundry room so I do a quick sweep through the downstairs looking for more stray clothing/towels/etc. and find several more items to take upstairs. Which I do, and while I'm in the laundry room I might as well run a load of wash, so I empty the dryer into a clothes basket (the fact that the clean dry clothes are piled into a clothes basket will gnaw at the back of my mind for the rest of the morning but I really don't have time to fold everything and put it away right now) and go round up all the whites from the kids' rooms, our room, and the dirty clothes pile in the laundry room, and start the washing machine. It makes me twitchy that the living room downstairs is still kind of cluttered and the floor is in desperate need of being vacuumed, and Stazi's Halloween costume still isn't quite finished, but I have this work deadline and I really wasn't going to do anything else but work on it, and hey look, it's already been half an hour since I got home.
Those of you who have known me for a long time may be mystified by this litany. I used to drive a car in high school that was piled with trash and school books and at one memorable point, a cake pan, up to the level of the windows in the back seat. You couldn't see the floor of my college dorm room basically ever. Keith and I lived in a couple of places for awhile that would probably have technically classified as examples of Level 2 Hoarding Behavior. Not pretty. But I don't know, ever since having kids and especially since moving into our own house that we are paying for with our own money, I've become a lot more neurotic about keeping the place clean. It's still not up to the level of my grandmother's house -- people used to joke that you could eat off the floors in that house any day of the week. Actually that probably wasn't a joke. But I know my limits.
Anyway, this is why it's difficult for me to come home while the kids are at school. I wind up doing more housecleaning than working, and then even when I stop cleaning in order to sit down and work, I still have this persistent nagging feeling that I should be doing more cleaning. It makes it hard to concentrate. For some reason it's easier for me to get work done when the kids are home and asleep, either during naptime or after they are in bed. I guess that's because in my mind, nighttime is classified as a time that is not appropriate for house cleaning, except for doing after-dinner cleanup and maybe throwing in a load of wash. And I can't do much during naptime either because I don't want to wake the kids up. So that makes it okay for me to sit down and work. Having Keith home to watch the kids while I work is good too, although with his recent work schedule that is not happening so much.
Those of you who think that telecommuting is a dream lifestyle, take notice: It definitely has its attractive points (like not having to pay for full-time day care) but it's kind of crazy-making in a lot of ways.
Posted at October 13, 2006 10:14 AM
Posted by: Bibi at October 14, 2006 11:32 AM
I feel the same way. When my kids took naps, I forced myself to stay upstairs and take a nap or read so that I wouldn't see the mess they'd made playing in the living room and kitchen. If I saw it, I would have to start cleaning it up, and then I'd spend the whole nap time putting away toys that would be out again in five minutes after they woke up! Those were some great naps, though. Worth every bit of slacking off on the cleaning!
Posted by: Laura at October 18, 2006 7:57 AM
Ah, yes. That is exactly what I do, too! You can actually SEE the goal, but there is so much crap in the way to GETTING there, it's overwhelming. You are far from alone in this. However, I am opposite. I actually used to vacuuum out the car to nearly spotless once a month. Now, it's a bi-annual event, if it's lucky. And I can tell you there's a whole lot more crap going in than there was before kids, dog and house (i.e. the three van-loads of yard waste to clean-green). I am still very impressed you can actually get that much paying work done a week. Not everyone is able to do that (including me!).