Taking the time…

I can relate to where you are sooo much.  I have spent the last five years in and out of hospitals-and when i was out of the hospital, i was preoccuppied.  Just last night i was talking to my husband about feeling sooo stress and felt i was “missing something”  What i have found over and over again is that i am much better at “letting go” of a clean house, perfect schedule etc when i have a good devotion time with God everyday!  I am much more able to focus on the here and now and appreciate my kids in the NOW-with my personality and health issues, it’s very easy for me to get caught up and forgot the beauty around me-my kids, my husband, nature etc!!  my only suggestions is to spend time in the Word and with God first and make that a priority-then you will be fresh and maybe more relaxed for others.?

your in my prayers.

pjean

I know you were looking to us for help.  But sometimes knowing that you are not alone is good company.  I also am pregnant with #7 and still get morning, afternoon and evening sickness .  I am not sleeping well and have been very cranky and short.

You are not alone and I also feel as you do some days more than others.  May God be patient with us as we are always learning.  Misty

Thank you so much for being open and honest enough to share these experiences!  I think it really helps others, because often we think that other people have it all together and we are lacking somehow.  Sometimes my house looks like there was an explosion of toys and shoes and clothing!  My kids do help me to keep the chaos at bay most of the time, but some days I look around and I think about the fact that if my grandmother was still alive she would look around and say “this room looks like the devil had a fit in it!”.

There has only been one time in my life where I suffered with severe nerve pain for a couple of months (the pain was worse than natural childbirth!), and once when I had a wreck and had terrible back pain for about 6 weeks, so I want to say that I am praying for you during this time, because pain can definitely steal your joy and make you very cranky with your family.  I wish I could help out with the physical pain, but since I can’t do that (other than pray!) maybe I can help a little with other things.

I have heard some wise words from older ladies in my life, and I think about them whenever I start having negative feelings about my house being a mess, or our homeschool not being perfect (I mean, whose homeschool is perfect?).  One of my Mom’s friends who is in her early 70’s now told me that she looks back and wishes that she had spent more time with her daughter and less time worried about her house.  She said she used to think that everything had to be completely clean before she went to bed, and now she looks back and thinks “why did I care about the house so much?  I wish I had spent more time with my daughter, because now she’s grown and she’s moved away, and I feel like I missed half of her life?”  Another older lady once told me–Melody, when you get to heaven, nobody is going to ask you how clean your house was!  Not one person has ever said to me–I wish I had spent less time with my kids.  I should’ve spent that time cleaning and planning and making sure everything was going the way that I thought everybody else was doing things.  I have heard over and over–enjoy them while they’re little, because they grow up fast, and you’ll turn around one day and they’ll be grown and gone. 

I have learned to let go of comparing myself to anyone else.  I am so glad for those that can have perfectly clean homes and perfectly scheduled homeschool days where all the kids sit quietly and never argue and are just so happy and joyful about the tasks they are asked to accomplish, but for most people that isn’t reality!  It isn’t even reality for those that you think have it all together!  I think planning is essential for having days that run smoothly, but don’t be so stuck to that plan that you can’t enjoy the unexpected happenings.  Training your kids to help out around the house is great, but don’t be so rigid with that that it becomes the focus and you can’t have fun.  We play music while we clean, because it just seems to make the job go faster.  I’m trying to show my kids that there are things in your life that you have to do, even though you don’t want to do them, but that doesn’t mean you can’t try and make the task as pleasant as possible.  I like the song “A Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine go Down” from Mary Poppins–corny, I know, but it gets the point across!  One thing to remember is that the housework is only a part of the day, it isn’t the whole goal of your existence!  Planning for your homeschool day is great, but if you’re trying to do math, and your kids are getting frustrated, then stop and play a game instead.  That math is still going to be there tomorrow.  The real goal is to let your kids see that you love God, and that helping others is important.  It’s more important to stop school work if you look out your window and see that your neighbor is trying unload a recliner from the van than to say, well we can’t help right now because we have to get this done!  There is another song that I think of sometimes when I’m stressed out.  It says–I’m in a hurry to get things done/ I rush and rush until life’s no fun/ All I’ve really gotta do is live and die/ But I’m in a hurry and don’t know why.  Many things that I think I “have to” do aren’t really that important.  Enjoying my children is important, and the way I do that is by just getting out and doing fun things with them.  Playing games, going to the zoo, going on a short hike, playing in a creek, playing with legos, etc.  I just try to find things that we can all enjoy together.  School work has to be done, but we can talk about things and take short breaks while we’re doing it, it doesn’t have to be a drudgery.

Sorry that this was all kind of rambling, but I just wanted to share some thoughts with you just to let you know that we all have times of discouragement, but we can help to pick each other up and encourage each other.  This season of our lives will pass far too soon!  I hope things get better for you, and just know that there are ladies out there thinking of you and praying for you!

There was a post a few months ago that was similar. I share it here for encouragement. http://simplycharlottemason.com/scmforum/topic/overcoming-perfectionism-in-homeschooling

You are not alone. I have definitely been in the “Plan for the Perfect _____________ Club” to the detriment of actually accomplishing anything. I still feel pulled in this direction sometimes, but i do get more joy from my kiddos and a partially accomplished school day than I do from perfectly planned, but nothing happens but the planning kind of days. Did that make sense?

Blessings,

Christie

Alana,  Thank you so much for taking the time to share – look at all the other ladies that you’ve helped to “come out of the cleaning/planning/scheduling closet” with your honesty.  I have had a period of irritability and many ladies on this site encouraged me as well.  I pray that your pain only lasts for a season and with it’s reduction you find some of these issues resolving themselves, but perhaps in the meantime a few changes can be made to lessen your distress.

One of the things you mentioned was meal planning – you said you already do it.  Is it possible that you can just use some of your previous weeks plans over and over again?  Or perhaps you can ask each of your seven family members to come up with their four favorite meals and then you’ll have 28 days worth of ideas – even if some are the same, I know with my kids and even my husband they are very content to eat their favorite meal once a week indefinitely – the variety I try to introduce is usually for my own taste as opposed to that of my family.  Also – if the budget allows, tell yourself that it’s ok to cheat, buy a bag of frozen chicken nuggets or a box of frozen pizzas for those days that are really bad, stock up on paper plates and plastic forks – I recently did this before the birth of our fourth child and while I normally would NEVER do such things, I gave myself permission because the extra money to me was worth the peace of mind.  Other meal ideas would be to do a little freezer cooking – perhaps you’re not able to handle it right now, but maybe your husband or your children could pick a couple of freezer friendly meals – double, triple or quadruple them – have one for dinner that night and put the others in the freezer.  A couple friends and I get together every three months and make 30 meals for each of our families and it has been a LIFESAVER – an economical, healthy way to have a main course available for those days when I just can’t figure out what’s for dinner.

You mentioned planning schedules – I’m wondering how busy your brood is.  Next time you start to plan your family’s schedule perhaps you can evaluate what things are essential and what things need to go until your family can slow down enough that things are staying more organized around the home and you are feeling better.  I know the worst cause of clutter in my home are the mornings where we are in a rush and so I just leave things undone that really only take a few minutes to do – making the bed, morning dishes (that currently sit in my sink because we had an early doctor’s appointment) etc… The more things that are left undone the easier it is to just pile until the mess is to the point that it’s taking a lot more than a couple minutes it would have taken if we hadn’t been in such a rush.  If you can combine activities onto the same day that could be helpful – giving yourself long blocks of time at home – less time driving places and just drop extra stuff.  Your kids are going to enjoy having you play fun games or read to them, much more than they are going to cherish all the soccer practices you took them too.  Sometimes even good things should be dropped for the family’s sanity and unity.  Unity in the family is a huge priority, right behind that of unity with your spouse and first unity with Christ.  Unity with Christ can be achieved by spending time with him which is sometimes mistaken with spending time at church and doing things church related.  While I believe it’s important to attend church and have fellowship with other believers, I think a lot of times obligation to church is distracting and ultimately takes away from our unity with our husband and children without building on our unity with Christ.  I’ve decided that dispite the fact that our church has an AMAZING wednesday night program for children and adults, we will not participate – mostly because I believe that for our family it’s just not necessary and it puts to much strain on us – not only to get out of the house on Wednesday night, but also on starting Thursday morning.  Despite the amazing program and teachers at church I’m confident that God can use this broken vessel to share the gospel with my children without having to leave the house.

As far as cleaning goes, it sounds as if you might take a great deal of the burden on yourself.  With 8 in the house that’s just not fair or even possible.  I have a friend with FIVE boys  age 11 down to 1 and it is amazing the things she has been able to train her sons to do – what an amazing encouragement to me with four daughters!  Her boys are fully capable of running their house for a full day when she isn’t feeling well.  I agree with using music to pass the time, also keep the time short, work in teams.  I find that when I am working on the same area as my girls their attitude is much better and they work much faster.  I set the timer because my girls are little and it helps them to know we won’t be doing it forever – no more than 15 minutes at a time.  I have even given us a reward to get motivated – so if we clean 15 minutes a day for 12 days (2 weeks – sunday) then we get to do such and such – for us it was have a tea party.  If we skip even one day then we have to start over – this helps them to remind ME to do our cleaning each day.  It also sounds like you may need to lower your standards, and I’m not sure how to help you do that as having high standards for house cleanliness is not something I’m burdened with.    Another possibility may be to hire some help with major scrubbing.  I know housekeepers are expensive and I just can’t stomach spending lots of money to do something I can do myself, but my husband recently expressed that the house needed to be cleaner and he would make it a budget priority to pay someone to help me in this area.  So I sent out an email to our area homeschool list, seeking someone to help me with bathrooms and kitchen.  I specified that a teenage girl was kind of what I was looking for and did not list a price – though my plan was $10 an house.  I cannot tell you how many replies I received – it must have been close to 30.  Now, I have a lovely lady with four daughters of her own coming every two weeks and bringing her girls to help her – what a huge blessing for me and a way that she is able to contribute a little money to their family budget as well – not to mention she is becoming a dear friend.

That’s the next thing I thought of – do you have some friends that can help share your load?  Are you good at asking for help?  I know it’s hard and some people do not have the same wonderful network that I have access to, but lots of time homeschool moms are busy and do not readily see the needs of other moms, but if you’re willing to share your needs, many moms will jump at the chance to assist you.  It’s not much of an extra burden for me to make a meal for someone else’s family, but I know it’s a HUGE relief to recieve a meal at just the right time.  It’s not a huge extra burden for me to watch someone else’s kids run through the sprinklers with mine for a few hours, but I know it’s a huge relief to be able to get grocery shopping done by yourself without dragging all the kids to the store.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help, it’s probably going to be a joy to someone else to know that they can assist you.

I pray that some of those ideas are helpful to you and I will keep you and all the other dear women that shared in my prayers – my sisters from the SCM forum!

Blessings,

Rebekah

I have cried as I read this tonight. Thank you for pulling it up.