Mommy and Me

Mommy and Me
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Sunday, December 31, 2017

New Years Resolution/I'm fed up!

Every year something happens in my household.  starting near the end of October (Micah's birthday/Halloween time) things begin to get a little crazy around here.  Our daily schedule begins to get off kilter, and slowly throughout the rest of the year it falls apart, only to be picked back up, dusted off and lovingly reinforced in January...
Nothing new this year... except that it started sliding off in August (Esmarie's Birthday) instead of October!  and I'm terrified that in years to come it will begin even earlier now that I've got a baby due in June... so if my year starts declining in June I'm in big trouble... this CANNOT happen!
I heard on the radio that in order to keep your New Years resolutions you need a specific plan.  Like say you want to lose weight (this is the example given on the radio) instead of saying "In 2018 I'm going to loose weight", you might say "I'm going to lose 20lbs by June 1st" and then you'll need to set mini goals, like "by April 1st I will have lost____" and "In order to attain these goals I'm going to eat salads for dinner 5 nights a week".... little attainable goals, with specifics attached to them.
This morning I looked at my home, under critical eyes, as I turned off all the lights before leaving for church.  With no thought about New Years Resolutions I analyzed each bedroom, the playroom, the living room, dinning room, kitchen, and bathrooms, and I came to the conclusion that God is blessing me FAR TOO MUCH.  I have this AMAZING dream home, and I'm FAILING miserably at keeping it looking like the blessing that it is.  I have 4 beautiful children living in this home that are 9, 7, 4, and 1 year old.  I feel like I do a pretty great job at the 1-2 year age range of teaching them the little things like 'take care of your shoes', 'throw away your diaper', and 'put your clothes in the basket'... but then something happens at the age where they start dressing themselves and the laundry basket is neglected, the diapers are gone, but the toilet training is AWFUL! (I know I'm not supposed to envy others, but seriously when you have a child who trains in less than a month and I'm still training mine 3 years in, it's pretty hard not to envy you).  And then they get older and until age 8 they are just stubborn and unmotivated, and I have to press hard to get things done, I have two in this stage right now... BUT if I do press hard I feel like at 8-9 years old (I have one there now) I have an amazing helper, and I'm looking forward to more of those!
Anyway, since Christmas our lives have been turned upside down, Patrick's work schedule is weird and he gets random days off, not the same ones every week, but different ones EVERY WEEK, there is a rhythm to it, but it is hard to follow.  So Christmas Eve I worked hard to get ready for Christmas, attended a party that evening tucked the kids in while demanding that Patrick vacuum the living room, and then went to bed after placing all the gifts under the tree.  Christmas morning I followed my normal tradition of making a giant all you can eat smorgasbord for breakfast, opened presents with the kids, attempted to control the mess of boxes and wrapping paper, took out the majority of said boxes and wrapping paper, made dinner, and then crashed after enjoying the meal.  I'd pretty much been serving my family from 5am-8pm, and I was beat.  The day after Christmas Patrick was working and I was exhausted so I pretty much took a break, and nothing got done, but I'd cleaned up a lot of things Christmas day so I wasn't too worried... what I didn't think about was the next two days.
Patrick works hard and when he has a day off the whole family takes their cues from him.. and that often means we leave sometime around lunch time and don't come home until dinner time.  Which in terms of housekeeping means that as soon as the kids have had a chance to make a mess we are gone, then we come back in time to either get them in bed or feed them dinner (if dinner then you can see the kitchen hasn't had time to be cleaned up, and is a general disaster area to work in).  So for two more days the house continued it's path of destruction.  If you are counting then you know I have only cleaned a little bit on one of the last 4 days.  Then comes Friday.  Patrick is sick, but he goes into work anyway and struggles through, while I dutifully try to recover a portion of the house that I know will last the longest, my bedroom, bathroom, closet area that have been neglected for awhile because of all the birthday parties and holidays that we've hosted this year.... so the rest of the house is STILL a MESS, and getting worse by the minute since I'm not able to keep the kids going on tasks out there and work on my bedroom at the same time.
Now we are on day 5 of minimal cleaning... and day six Patrick says he is feeling better but sounds pretty awful (sore throat from the day before is just making his voice sound cracked) and they send him home from work (for sounding bad, but not feeling bad).  And because both of his vehicles are dead and buried we use this unexpected blessing of time off to go car shopping.  We left at 10am, and got home around 6pm... I made dinner and then tried unsuccessfully to get warm after having been in and out of the car in 19 degree weather all day, and barely got anything done.  Then there is today... when I critically looked at my house and realized I'm WAY over my head right now.
I'm a planner so of course after hearing the advice on New Years resolutions on the radio I began planning.  HOW CAN  I MAKE NEXT YEAR DIFFERENT? 
First off, I'm getting a routine going.  It occurs to me that I CANNOT delegate and manage if 1. I'm doing all the work myself, and 2. I'm not standing over my children to make sure they do the work themselves.... so far it just hasn't worked with 3 out of 4 of my children... the 4th is the oldest so I'm holding onto hope that the others will catch up.
So you can expect very soon to see my new chore chart, and responsibility lists, but until then, here is what I've come up with.
1. I need a MOMMY CHORE CHART.  Yes the kids need charts, but if I have to actively manage them, I need to organize THEIR CHORES to fit MY SCHEDULE.   
2. Each Child will have jobs that they do EVERY DAY for a month, and then we will decide if they keep those jobs or get to switch to new ones. I've read the benefit of both things... and I just don't know which I like better, but I'm leaning toward proficiency and that seems to come from doing something over and over again.
3. There will be MORE on each child's list than ever before.  Not because I'm mean, but because while it is hard for me to train my children to do these things, I eventually would like to be able to just manage my household and not do it all myself.
4. We are going to have to work as a family, so in some ways that is going to mean that Daddy has to take responsibility for things too... although his main responsibility has been and always will be to provide for us financially and mine is, has been and always will be to take care of those provisions in a responsible way, the new portion Daddy will have to play is basically to help me enforce these changes on days he has off... or I won't be able to keep them up because of his constantly changing schedule.

Keep watching for how this goes!  I'm determined to make a plan and to see it through so that this project of CARING FOR OUR BLESSINGS is seen through to a satisfactory ending.
AND maybe even more can be done this way.. maybe!

*note, my children have always had chores, and I have a GREAT schedule for doing my own jobs... but it takes dedication to follow through, and until now the majority of the work has been on my own shoulders, I'm a bit unsure of how this will go, having the kids do my chores with me until they can manage them all themselves, but I'm hopeful that it will mean the work is seen more as family work than just what mommy needs 'help' with.

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