The Maven, font of wisdom that she is, wrote once "I am both overwhelmed and underwhelmed." Underwhelmed in the sheer mediocrity of the daily, repetitive, thankless, unnoticed tasks that make up such a large portion of my everyday life. Sweep the floor and one meal later, it needs swept again. Dusting the school desk takes 15 minutes, but who notices when it gets done. Dusting the miniature shelf takes even longer. Laundry--sort wash dry fold hang. Clean behind the toilet, every day, because Little Guy's aim still needs work. Come check the toilet every time Little Guy pees, because if he gets it all *in* the toilet, he gets a popsicle stick in his cup. Four popsicle sticks equals a Webkinz special recipe food item that he gets to pick out, sit on Mommy's lap to make on her account, then mail to his account through kinzpost. Fuss at Sweetling who is reading over my shoulder and not doing her vocabulary....
These are the things that consume my day.
And I love being a stay-home mom. And I love being a homeschooling mom. LOVE IT.
But every now and then the "underwhelmed but overwhelmed" thing really bugs me. Especially the overwhelmed part. Yesterday the mediocre housework just didn't get accomplished. Very little in school got accomplished either. Why? I have no idea. It wasn't because we had a Webkinz holiday. Or a playdate. Or errands to run. Or fun phone calls with friends. Or a good book to read. No. It just didn't get done. We were home all day. We were *trying* all day. The gears were turning, but the train was in neutral. And nothing got done. So, overwhelmed because I can't get whats on my plate done.
Foremost among these frustrations was the dishwasher. One puts the dirty dishes in. One puts in detergent. One turns the dishwasher on. One goes about ones happy little life until some later time, when one comes back to take the dishes out. It is NOT that difficult. So, when one continuously, continuously misses one of these ever so simple steps and comes back to find that the dishwasher is still, in fact, full of dirty dishes and now so is the sink....one becomes frustrated with oneself. One rants at one's husband. One rants at one's Sweetling. One rants at one's mother. One rants at one's Mango on the phone. One rants on one's blog.
Then the next day, when one is ever so proud at one's clever self because she did indeed remember to run the dishwasher, only to go downstairs to discover that the dryer is still full of wet clothes because one forgot to push the start button....well then one is completely justified---completely justified, in ranting some more.
Sweetling suggests that I should reward myself when I remember to run the dishwasher by giving myself a piece of chocolate. This positive reinforcement should better train the Mommy. Sweetling doesn't know that Mommy has a brownie mix in the pantry that is going to shortly become Mommy's consolation prize.
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