Carrying Anna outside to pick some beans from our garden for supper, I sighed.
The patio was more green than grey with all the weeds coming up through the cracks. The hose lay in a tangled mess off to the side and toys from the sandbox littered the yard. The flower beds looked like they were in need of a good drink and weeds had begun to crowd out the herbs I had planted in the vegetable garden.
The kiddie pool in serious need of a good cleaning, and our weedy patio. The lawn showed serious signs of neglect too. Not having been cut in two weeks, the grass had reached that unpleasant length where your ankles get tickled by the blades and bit by mosquitoes that had found a home near the roots.
I picked a bowl full of beans and returned to the house. Weeds were poking through the pavement in the driveway too. I opened the door and felt a hot tear trickle down my cheek. I quickly brushed it away. The kids were laughing hysterically together and I didn't want to rain on their parade.
Charity's dolls from Aunt Connie, all swaddled up and sleeping on the couch. Notice the pillows so they don't roll off? Toys strewn all over the living room showed signs of active imaginations and serious creativity. I like to have things neat and tidy for my dear husband when he gets home from work, but that clearly wasn't going to happen this day..not if I was going to have a nice dinner ready and Anna fed by the time he walked in the door too.
I felt deflated, hypocritical, and way behind on everything. I write about the joys of motherhood and being a homemaker, but today I just wasn't feeling it as I stared a sink full of unwashed dishes, enough food underneath the table to add an egg and make a casserole, and a long to-do list of things that still needed to be done: laundry, bath the kids, make supper, clean out the van, etc., etc.
It's not that my husband doesn't pitch in. He does, more than any other husband I know. He works hard all day and then comes home is a SuperDad to our kids and a loving husband to me. He washes, dries, and puts away the dishes after dinner, gives the kids piggy-back rides around the house while they shriek with delight, brushes their teeth, reads them stories before bed, and tucks them in at night. Then he pays our bills, runs errands I didn't get to during the day, and often brings me back a little surprise like Reese's or ice cream. He's a champion in every way so this feeling of "way behindishness" I get doesn't come from him.
Our tiny kitchen, looking well-used. :-) The unreasonable standard I had set for myself was self-imposed and largely influenced by staged photos on Pinterest and the comparison game I played with other homemakers. No one was telling me I had to serve gourmet meals every night, keep a spotless, well-organized home, and dress my children in trendy clothes that matched. But somehow I had gotten the idea that doing all these things would mean I was being successful in my role as a wife, mother, and homemaker.
Brad walked in the door and I didn't greet him like I normally do. I knew I'd probably have a melt down so I kept washing dishes. Silly of me really, because he knows his wife well and immediately knew something was up. He kissed my on my cheek and asked, "Hi Sweetheart. How was your day?"
I lost it. His kind gesture was no match for the frustrations I had pent up inside and the tears started flowing while I rattled off my list of failures. "I didn't get anything done today. The grass still needs to be cut, supper's not ready and we've already had cereal or take-out twice this week, Anna needs to be fed again, Charity's out of clean underwear, and I can't remember the last time I gave the kids a proper bath!" For emphasis, I added, "I just can't do it any more. Sometimes I think I'd just be better off at work."
Brad knew I didn't mean that. He put his hands on my waist and looked me in the eye. "The reason you feel like you didn't get anything done today, is because you were busy doing more important things." He glanced over at our three busy kids and continued. "I don't care if we have to eat take-out every night, or use paper plates for a while, or if the wash doesn't get folded. If you get nothing done all day but the kids are happy, then I'm happy too!"
I thought back on our day. It started with me crawling into Charity's bed for our morning snuggle. She told me all about how her stuffed animals had behaved at night. Judah had peed through his diaper, so I washed him up before breakfast and started a load of laundry. We had our usual smoothies, read the story of Jonah for devotions, and prayed that God would keep Daddy safe at Opa's shop and give us clean hearts that love Him above all and our neighbors as ourselves.
Judah's raspberries. Then I read Charity a chapter from Little House in the Big Woods while I nursed Anna. Judah can't sit that long, so he played "excavators" on the coffee table. After making sure everyone had gone to the bathroom, and the diaper bag was packed, we went to my aunt's farm to pick raspberries.
"See Mom? If you just squish them like this, then we don't have to make jam when we get home!"
"I'm picking all the tiny little hard ones 'cause they're SOOOO cute!"
"Look, Mom! I picked all the white ones! We can just pick off the green prickles after."
Anna had decided she was finished before we started, so I discovered how fast I can pick with one hand while rocking a screaming baby: 2 quarts in half an hour.
We made it home in time for lunch. I had some leftover chocolate drizzle from a cheesecake so I made happy faces on their peanut-butter sandwiches. They were over the moon with delight.
After nap-time, we took a walk across the road to the park and cooled off for a few minutes at the splash pad. Back home, Charity wanted to do "school," so she found her books and pencils and I showed her how to make the number three. "Around a tree and around a tree. This is how to make a three!" we sang together.
Throughout the day there were squabbles to break up, attitudes to adjust, meltdowns to clean up, time-outs for tempers, kisses for boo-boos, apologies given and accepted, and hugs for the emotionally distraught.
Brad was right. I may not have gotten much done by way of housework, but alongside me had been three little sidekicks whose minds and hearts, for better or for worse, were being shaped, molded, and influenced by their Mom.
The weight of my responsibility struck me. I wasn't raising children here, I was raising adults. I was forming the next generation of fathers and mothers. I was shaping the characters of those who would raise our grandchildren. There was so much I needed to teach them, so much discipling that needed to happen in their tender hearts as well as mine.
The laundry, dirty house, and weeds in the patio will still be there one day when I have time to play catch up. But I'll never be able to play catch up with my kids. My time with them is slipping away like hourglass sand and I can't stop it.
So, while I'd like to maintain an immaculate house, keep our patio weed-free, and cut out the take-out, I've only got one chance at this Mom thing. Charity is three years old - almost four. If she marries at the same age I did, I have just 14 short years left before she leaves the nest. The first three have come and gone in a blink of an eye. Five more blinks and it's over.
"And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up." Deuteronomy 6:7 Truth is, if you're way behind on everything except time spent with your kids, you're way ahead.
Linking to: Raising Homemakers, Deep Roots At Home, We Are That Family, Raising Arrows, A Wise Woman., Walking Redeemed, The Better Mom, The Modest Mom, A Mama's Story