A Happy Medium

Lately my house cleaning has been pretty successful. Our house has been pretty tidy for the most part, and this has been pleasant to live in day in and day out.

Sacrifices have been made however, and the biggest one is my free time with the boys, just being with them. I miss this greatly. All morning has been spent in lessons with the boys, so I am not neglecting time with them entirely, but I am still missing that time just PLAYING with them.

I think that I have decided that as nice as my clean house has been, it is not worth giving up this time with them - they are only small once and before long they won't let me build block castles with them, play in the sandbox, or fight the evil pirates from atop their fortress. However, I am also not ready to let the house slip back into complete and utter chaos.

Hence I am looking for a happy medium. The trouble is, I am a bit of an extremist personality. Either I give into my perfectionist side and want everything to be done right - in other words with the house, for it to be immaculate, ready to showcase at a moments notice. Then there is the other side of me that gives up and says, "oh well, if it can't be done well, may as well not do it at all until it can be done right" and procrastinates, looking for a "better time". This better time rarely appears while living with 4 small boys 24 hrs a day.

I need to let go of perfection and be satisfied with "just a little bit better". I tried this out this morning, as I looked at the kitchen floor. It needed to be mopped - badly - and I had been putting it off until I could get the boys out of the house for a few hours. That way I could scrub it down (grout included!) and have it look that way for an hour or so, making the effort seem worthwhile. Yet that opportunity has not presented itself as of late and so I stood there looking at my disastrous floor, a bit resigned.

As I watched the boys playing outside, I decided that I would mop for 10 minutes and set my timer. I put my plan into action. As my timer went off, I stopped and looked at what I had accomplished - not bad. Not great by any means (a couple of spots still had dried something on them and the grout looked terrible), but much better than it had been 10 minutes earlier. I did feel better. I then headed outside with the boys.

We had a great time swinging and pretending the playhouse was our space ship. But the best part was when we came in for lunch, and Philip tracked dirt in, I wasn't upset in the slightest, because after all, the floor wasn't perfect to start with anyway!

Sometimes Moms nearly kill themselves (or just beat themselves up!) striving for a perfection that is just a bit unrealistic in a world with small children. We don't have to completely let go of these goals - they are good to strive for - but sometimes we do need to loosen up a bit on the reins!