I’ve been a grump lately. Not much fun to live with. Pouting because my husband doesn’t take the initiative and pick up without being asked or without detailed instructions listing every minute step in the entire process. Pouting that I don’t want to be married to someone who acts like he’s functionally mentally retarded when it comes to completeing simple domestic tasks. Pouting because the kids can mess a room faster than I can even think about cleaning it. Pouting because the kids are so darned difficult to juggle every single day, from start to finish. Pouting because there are no grand road trips in my future at this time. Pouting because I’ve let my writing career sag lower than my tits lately. It’s dropping beyond National Geographic here, folks.

I talked to several friends, some with kids, some without. A couple that I view as serious role models revealed that—gasp!—their homes aren’t perfect and they’re behind on all sorts of crap and they often feel overwhelmed, too. One even shared a pic of her living room that looked shockingly like most rooms in my house—utter chaos (but with better furniture). So I’ll add that I pout sometimes because our house looks like it doubles as a Salvation Army thrift store in its spare time.

The two themes that seemed to recur were:
1. I sound burned out and need more down time.
2. I simply have to decide not to sweat the small stuff.

Okay let’s add a third:

3. Entirely too much pouting.

While at age 6, Jackson is a dream (after a couple of very rocky behavioral/developmental years), my two younger children are each in challenging developmental phases.

Nolan is the defiant three-year-old. His whining is my kryptonite, and he whines often, regardless of what tactics I put in place to address it (including ignoring it or saying “I can’t understand you, let’s talk when you can speak more clearly”). It’s still annoying, no matter how you slice it. He also yells when awakened, averaging at least 3x/night. So where you or I might wake in the night, we simply roll over and go back to sleep. Not Nolan. This is cause for YELLING to let the rest of the house know that he just woke up and why the heck isn’t he back to sleep IMMEDIATELY? I’m talking a yell that makes you sit bolt upright in bed, shaking your head and asking “where am I?” until the Nolan howl clues you in, you do a mental forehead slap and pass out again.

Aaron is simply in that “id” phase of the 12-to-18-month-year-old. He never stops exploring and 99.99% of the time, the things he wants to explore don’t involve the three HUGE toyboxes placed on each of the 3 levels of this house. My computer, the contents of the fridge, the laundry/furnace room and anything I’m working on at the time are far more enticing. Screw you, developmental toy companies!

Despite frequent de-cluttering, we still have too much stuff and inadequate methods for storing what we do have. So Kevin and I are talking about that and trying to figure out how to keep the crap factor lower.

Plus, I suck as a housekeeper. I hate heavy cleaning and always let it all slide. I dream of being able to afford a cleaning service, but my friends who have them all say the house looks like crap 2 days later anyway. But at least their toilets get scrubbed more often than, say, quarterly.

I went out today and read the entire latest issue of “O” magazine at the local coffee shop. Didn’t do a lick of work and didn’t feel a bit guilty about it. Came home and started doing some much-needed cleaning. Tonight we’re having baked garlic chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy (from scratch), steamed veggies and home-made dinner rolls. I was in the mood for some comfort food and for some time in the kitchen. I’m not cooking as much as I’d like to lately; relying upon convenience meals a little too often (like defrosting chili from an earlier batch or pasta w/frozen sauce I’d made earlier, too + one fast food meal on weekends too many—I only like to have that once a month at the max; it’s such soulless “food”).

I was at the coffee shop and it didn’t feel great to be there; I miss the old manager and all but one or two of the baristas I used to know have moved on. Plus, I felt tired of having to escape my home, and I started thinking, “Why can’t I craft a home where I can “get away” in some comfy corner and make my own chai and pumpkin bread?” Not that getting out of the house isn’t important when you work from home and raise kids at home. But I just felt tired of living in a house that didn’t felt pleasant to be in, and I aim to change that, slowly, as I go along. I don’t want a perfect house. I don’t even much care about the Salvation Army factor; I just want a cozy space that makes me feel happy to be there, something cozy that feels like home. Something that doesn’t make me feel the burden of the 400 tasks I’m not accomplishing when I look around.

I think where all this dissatisfaction and frustration are leading me is to something really simple. I can’t keep beating myself like a dead horse hoping I’ll spring back to life. There is no perfect “system” and no “someday.” I’m here, now. My kids need me, they need structure, they need predictability. They don’t need a distracted, overwhelmed mom. They need me here, now. I need me here, now. And the key to slogging through all of this is to just keep moving, to remember my priorities and focus upon those and scuttle the rest. No systems, no grand plans, no detailed goal-setting. Just doing it. Living here, now. Doing simple things like checking my calendar at night to see what’s coming in the next few days. Like patiently asking Kevin for help and doing the detailed explaining because at least he’ll help when I ask him.

Same goes for the sagging writing career and ass, to get really specific. The only way out is through. Just keep doing those little things that help me shape what matters to me in this life, and chuck the rest. I don’t want to live for “someday” any longer. Someday I’ll be dead. In the meantime, it’s time for living. Which means doing, not pouting.