Parenting Advice?
I understand that with age and experience come a different sense of perspective.
And I understand that when you're in the trenches of life it can be hard to see the larger picture.
But...
Over the course of the past seven years I have had a number of people say something along the lines of "in the greater scheme of things it doesn't matter if your floors are dirty or the laundry isn't folded, your children will only be young once".
In theory this sounds good. Savor the time with the children, don't worry about keeping an immaculate house.
Well, as anybody who has been here in the past five years can attest, my house is far from immaculate. And I try to enjoy the children as much as I can. But yesterday morning, when I spent 30-40 minutes changing the sheets on my bed which hadn't been changed in a week and a half so that I could dump out the four baskets of clean laundry onto the bed in order to find clean underwear for the Italian and myself, all the while trying to stop Buddy from jumping on any of the beds in the house and throwing piles of folded laundry onto the floor, never mind dealing with the dishes or figuring out what to make for dinner, I really didn't appreciate that phrase running through my head. The reality is there's a certain amount of stuff you can ignore, and a certain amount that has to get done. And while I would love to sit and play and gaze adoringly at my children in all my spare time sometimes there isn't very much that is spare once I get done with all the stuff that has to get done.
On a slightly lighter note, it was pretty damn funny when, after I spanked him several times for jumping in his bed, Buddy had the bright idea to stuff his small pillow down the back of his pants so it wouldn't hurt as much when I spanked him. I tried to explain that not jumping on the bed was an even better idea, since that would mean that I wouldn't spank him at all, but I leave you to guess how much that thought sank into his thought processes.
And one more thing
this is the scene I turned around to find a couple of weeks ago when I was home with both kids. They had taken the glider rocker's footstool, upended it and then dumped all of the bins of clothes from Buddy's changing table on and around the ottoman. Then they piled on top, which is when I took a picture. After I took the picture they then proceeded to dump several large bins of building blocks on top of all of that. And I wonder why the house is never tidy!
And I understand that when you're in the trenches of life it can be hard to see the larger picture.
But...
Over the course of the past seven years I have had a number of people say something along the lines of "in the greater scheme of things it doesn't matter if your floors are dirty or the laundry isn't folded, your children will only be young once".
In theory this sounds good. Savor the time with the children, don't worry about keeping an immaculate house.
Well, as anybody who has been here in the past five years can attest, my house is far from immaculate. And I try to enjoy the children as much as I can. But yesterday morning, when I spent 30-40 minutes changing the sheets on my bed which hadn't been changed in a week and a half so that I could dump out the four baskets of clean laundry onto the bed in order to find clean underwear for the Italian and myself, all the while trying to stop Buddy from jumping on any of the beds in the house and throwing piles of folded laundry onto the floor, never mind dealing with the dishes or figuring out what to make for dinner, I really didn't appreciate that phrase running through my head. The reality is there's a certain amount of stuff you can ignore, and a certain amount that has to get done. And while I would love to sit and play and gaze adoringly at my children in all my spare time sometimes there isn't very much that is spare once I get done with all the stuff that has to get done.
On a slightly lighter note, it was pretty damn funny when, after I spanked him several times for jumping in his bed, Buddy had the bright idea to stuff his small pillow down the back of his pants so it wouldn't hurt as much when I spanked him. I tried to explain that not jumping on the bed was an even better idea, since that would mean that I wouldn't spank him at all, but I leave you to guess how much that thought sank into his thought processes.
And one more thing
this is the scene I turned around to find a couple of weeks ago when I was home with both kids. They had taken the glider rocker's footstool, upended it and then dumped all of the bins of clothes from Buddy's changing table on and around the ottoman. Then they piled on top, which is when I took a picture. After I took the picture they then proceeded to dump several large bins of building blocks on top of all of that. And I wonder why the house is never tidy!
posted by Marie at 9:19 PM
1 Comments:
The thing that works best for us is to "pick up 14 things and put them away." Choose a different number each time. Then, periodically, have an organizing day where you make a game of deciding where things should go, maybe hanging up a new poster or getting miniature glow-in-the-dark devil ducks to go on a high shelf.
It's a never-ending thing -- they'll be storing stuff in your garage forever. --Syl, who has a saddle in her parents' garage...!
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