lessthanperfect

…I promise I’ll be a more faithful blogger. The fatigue caused by my resolution to get up before the kids is catching up to me. The last two days I was hit by a bout of ennui…a sort of soul-wide shrug of the shoulders and ‘meh’ response to everything that comes to hand. Little tasks get put off often enough that they are no longer little, but complicated and tangled from being neglected, like an unpruned topiary.

On the other hand, I’ve been cooking again. So, although I’m still less-than-perfect, I think it evens out.

Yesterday was a good reminder why I am still less-than-perfect. I was on a roll! I woke up early, made sure my husband had a lunch and coffee before he left for work, made myself tea and breakfast, blogged and got other internet things out of the way, and had muffins in the oven when the kids woke up. I cleaned, did laundry, took out the garbage, put away the Christmas decorations, and mailed a package. I washed dishes, chatted with a friend, built block towers with my sons, and tidied the play room. I did school with #1 son - reading and writing, and even an art project (we talked about sculptures and made one out of home-made playdough). I even made dinner in the slowcooker and baked fresh crusty Italian bread! DH was home on time, the boys were in bed on time, and I had an hour of reading by myself  before bed.

I felt like the perfect mother, wife, and housewife!

Then I woke up at 9am this morning when my boys woke up, and didn’t get out of my pjs or get breakfast made until an hour ago. I’ve been on the computer all morning, there’s a bill payment problem I have to figure out, and we’re short on groceries so lunch will have to be leftovers and I have no idea what to do about dinner. The baby is ripping apart a library book and the house is a mess. The sink is full of dishes from last night’s dinner that I meant to do early this morning!

At least days like today keep me humble. And less than perfect.

Two months ago I did the very brave an ‘good parent’ thing of taking the tv away. It’s in the shed behind the house. I thought that this would serve the purpose of both lengthening my 3 yr old’s miniscule attention span, and force me to be a better mom by reducing my ability to abandon him to the ministrations of the electronic babysitter.

And it has, to some extent, done both of those things. In the time since removing the tv, Son#1 has both potty trained and learned to read. I know, that’s a funny contrasting set of talents to have correlated. Anyway….

On the other hand, I’ve discovered that I used to do housework while he watched tv. And housework has become increasingly hard to stay on top of (’stay on top’ in my defective less-than-perfect world means no more than 1 sink full of dirty dishes and no grit under my feet when I walk ;-P)

So yesterday I opened a new Pandora’s box - I let him watch a movie on Hulu. He only recently stopped opining the loss of the tv set (”It makes me sad when you take away the tv”) and now I have him begging from the time he woke up this morning for “a movie on the puter, Mama?!!”

Sigh.

I’ll figure out how to balance everything. Someday. Maybe.