Our ancient cast-iron plumbing is hopelessly clogged in our kitchen so our sink, our dishwasher, our disposal all won't drain. Fun, fun, fun. The plumbers come to rework our kitchen plumbing tomorrow, but I've been washing dishes in a bucket since Saturday, using paper plates and trying to creatively use one pan when cooking. All of this has brought to a head my constant struggle to keep the perfect house while raising a head-strong and accident-prone child.
I swear I'm not as anal as that sounds. Trust me, my house is far from perfect and even on its cleanest days it is still a lived-in house with a stray cobweb probably in the corner, stacks of papers/books/clutter on the desk, floors that probably haven't been washed in the last six months, toys everywhere and please, please don't open my oven.
I struggle with the unrealistic June Cleaver vision of a stay at home mom yet at the same time holding myself to that standard. I mean, sure, I want to emulate June in her ability to care for her family while still looking put together and in heels no less. But that stereotypical "housewife" raises the hair on the back of my neck. So why do I feel like a bad mommy when I realize I've stepped over the same pile of books in the bedroom for three months?
I guess I still feel like because I'm home I should be more "with it" than I am when it comes to household chores. After all, working moms have to handle the cooking and the cleaning and the mothering on top of being at work for most of a day. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that without a job, the status of the house is really the only measuring stick to my daily performance, or so it feels some days.
I'm working on it. I'm learning to accept my imperfections and make friends with the dust bunnies. Luckily, I have a kid who thinks the Swiffer is a toy!
And it's all your fault anyway, dear reader...I probably could have washed a bucket of dishes in the time it took me to write this. Oh well.
2 comments:
Sam loves the swifer, too!
I too am lucky to have a little cleaner. She loves to dust/wipe surfaces with her baby wipes, stand at the sink and "help" with the dishes, and push the swiffer around (she's even figured out how to get the spray out of the Swiffer Wet). Thank goodness for her cleaning traits, because this is one working mommy with a house that's never clean enough.
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