Until I got married I never knew how many different jobs a wife or mother has. Each day I take care of 2 babies for about 12 hours, I am a chef whipping up 3 meals and 2 snacks and 1 bottle. I'm the housekeeper constantly trying to keep with a never ending list of chores. Some days require me to be a seamstress mending broken clothes or a handywoman (like when the chain on the toilet broke and I had to fix it!). Occasionally I'm a travel agent booking flights and hotel rooms then packing and unpacking for everyone. When there are boo boos I'm a nurse. And all of my kids' waking hours I am their teacher. They learn so much just from watching me do these jobs and spending time doing art or playing tea party with them. And on top of teaching I am their primary disciplinarian so I have to teach them right from wrong and I have to help them get to heaven!
Putting all your energy into them can be satisfying at first but as time goes on it usually leads to frustration and boredom. I REALLY struggle with routine - spontaneity is more my thing - but what do tiny children need? Stability and ROUTINE! One easy way that I try to combat the repetition is to practice a little meditation before each chore. I try to remember pause and say "Lord, I do this out of love for you." The 10 seconds I spend saying that to God pausing for Him somehow make even the most mundane task so necessary to my salvation. For example, we were super low on food last night so I had to make a Costco run with both girls. On the way there I said my little prayer and it just transformed the task from "Ugh I hate going to Costco myself with the girls because it's too hard and I need to get home for bath time and this is going to take forever" to "We really need food. Taking an hour out of my day to do this will provide us food for a couple of weeks. We are really blessed to have the money to buy food. If it takes longer than hour, whatever. It's not like the girls have any concept of time." And the trip turned out not to be a big deal at all once I relaxed...I may even be getting a couch from Costco :)
Try a little recollection this week and let me know how it goes!
3 comments:
It's time for a new couch :)
nope. couch dream dead. thanks hubby.
I love the little prayer throughout the day. It reminds us of the love and merit of even the most mundane tasks for the family.
Also, if you're feeling a longing for spontaneity, I highly recommend randomly going out one day with the girls to a spot that's really fun. Maybe you have a groupon for a fun kids' spot nearby that's been saved up, or even just a random trip to the beach. Just up and decide one morning to take an adventure and put your mind to really having fun with the girls. Don't worry about anything except having fun with them, and believe me, you will enjoy it! Even if you don't have time to make dinner that day, I'm sure your hubby won't mind pizza or take-out when combined with the joy you can share over the dinner table that night.
I did this yesterday with Mina. I up and decided midday to take her to Disneyland, even though it meant we might not make it home for naptime. We didn't, but she was fine, I was fine, and we actually had so much fun. Being 9 months pregnant, and it being August, I thought I was having a stroke of insanity desiring to go there in the middle of the afternoon, but it turned out to be really fun, bonding time.
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