I’m still fine-tuning my daily routines, but we are doing well so far. This morning I asked Ben if he wanted to make his bed by himself or if he wanted me to help him. He thought about it for a moment and then said he wanted to make it by himself. So while he made his bed, I made our bed, and now both beds are made. Then at breakfast, he asked me to read to him. I think he’s getting the idea that being read to can be fun, so now I can start using it as a reward for being good while I do something I need to do, right?
Today’s focus is to take back the basement. The upstairs has been neat and tidy for about a week, but the basement has been where I’ve been taking all the clutter (mostly because that’s where it needed to be dealt with anyway). It’s a cloudy day so I won’t feel like I’m missing the sunshine by camping out in the basement. I have a bunch of stuff ready to list on ebay except that I need to package it up and find out how much it will cost to ship that since I have to include that as part of the listing. Once that stuff is out of the way, I have some paperwork to do, bills to pay (I do this weekly), and filing to do (which always seems to be behind).
The thing about having everything neat and tidy is that, at least at first (or so I’m telling myself), it seems a bit lonely. I get up in the morning and come out to the living room and since all the toys were put away when the boys went to bed, it’s like I’m the only one who lives here or something. It’s an eerie feeling that takes some getting used to, but I do find that I am more productive in a tidy room than an untidy one so I’m hoping I can adjust and it will be worth it.
When I was in college, the quarters where I had a 4.0 GPA were also the quarters where I exercised regularly and kept my dorm room or apartment neat and tidy. But then, for some reason, I always fell back into my old habits of needing to do such things instead of doing them. And schedules? I don’t know how many times I’ve made schedules as a SAHM only to have them fall by the wayside because they just weren’t working.
This time, though, it’s different. Or so I’m telling myself. I’m trying to make a flexible schedule that is based on what we’re already doing rather than imposing some unattainable ideal on myself. I’m trying to make small changes here and there instead of doing a big overhaul.
At first I was making little routines, but I’m back to working with checklists. For instance, I take a shower, do my skin care, dry my hair and then do my floor exercises. [Exercise is another thing I’ve started and stopped more times than can be counted.] The first three items I always do together, but the floor exercises, while they may generally work best after I get out of the shower because my muscles are “warm” from the hot shower and seem to respond better to stretching, there can be exceptions, such as this morning, where I want to do them sooner – or later. This morning I seemed to have a lot of nervous energy and floor exercises were something active that I could do quietly while taking a shower might have woken up certain little people who I was not ready to see yet. So having floor exercises separate from my normal shower routine allows for such deviations while still getting everything done.
Sometimes I get so discouraged when I try to bring order to my life. I’ve failed so many times, and while there are lots of people who don’t do as well as I do – whose houses are far messier than mine – there are also people who do much better than I do. I know I function much better when I am disciplined and organized, but sometimes I’m just to tired to do what I know needs to be done. Then when I tell people how I’m making all these big changes, I feel like they’re looking at me like I have two heads and all my great plans are going to be in vain, just like all the others.
My hope, though, is that if I stick with it long enough, I can establish a new groove, so to say. A new baseline. A new normal. I can fill the time I used to spend thinking about needing to do things with new and different things since the routine stuff is done and out of the way.
But that’s just a hunch – I could be totally wrong. Then again, I have made changes successfully before – I can do it again. I choose to cling tightly to hope and optimism.
Onward!
Well, while I’m all for routines and schedules and the like (ALL for. It’s like my obsession. I am very schedule/routine oriented.) I think you can be perfectly happy without them, as long as you let yourself believe that it’s alright. I grew up in a very unscheduled household. It was never neat as a pin (not dirty at all, just a bit cluttered and lived-in) and with the exception of a strict bedtime there really was no schedule. We did what we did when we did it-dinner, homework, chores. As long as it was done at the end of the day all was well. And it was a great life, and it produced 3 great kids/adults.
I hope you can find something that works for you guys, without stressing about it too much either way.
I am with you–no matter how often I fail, I rarely give up trying from a different angle. Some things you finally realize are not that important and its OK to let them go. I’m so glad to hear that Ben is enjoying the reading that you have been doing. That was a great idea to get him hooked on it while unable to try to turn the pages himself. There is always another angle to try to outsmart little people. You are doing a great job as a mother–hang in there and it will all turn out!