Never Ending Cleaning...

...Maybe there is an "end" or at the least, structure!


"The house is always a mess." "I hate spending more time cleaning, than time with my family." "I don't have time to do that." "There's always so much left to do." "I'm failing at this role as Mom..."


...These are some of the things I often say to myself. I feel like our house is always messy, and although it may be just me, regardless, it's an unsettling feeling. Who has time to clean the appliances in the kitchen, or wipe down all of the blinds, or sweep and mop the entire wood and tile floors? (which if you know our house the entire square footage is tile or hard wood) I don't feel like I have that time, but they definitely all get dirty. I certainly feel like cleaning shouldn't consume your life, but it's an important necessity, so how are other Mom's/House Wives keeping their homes so clean? Sometimes I walk into other people's homes and I think, "How do they do this? It's so clean in here!" It's a little discouraging, and makes me feel like somewhat of a failure. If other people are able to do it, why am i struggling with it? Is everyone else struggling too? Am I being too hard on myself? It's really hard for me because I in fact feel like I'm cleaning all of the time, but there's little to no reward because there's so much more that needs to be done...always.


To start, for us, we didn't merge our belongings together very efficiently when we merged our lives. If there wasn't a place for something we'd just stick it in the corner, which has been creating an outcome of clutter. So, we've put some effort in figuring out how to keep it straightened up. The secret is organization and making sure everything has a place to be put away. We are still working on some areas of the house but the places we've organized are much easier to keep straightened. We are definitely getting closer, but still have a ways to go. 


This is a great start, but how am I supposed to actually keep this place clean? Where do I find the time to clean, spend time with my son, work, and cook dinner? Is there really enough hours in the day? It seems impossible and I started to realize that I'm spending the majority of my day doing everyday chores like dishes, cleaning the kitchen counters, laundry, sweeping, straightening etc. and since those chores are done throughout the day, as well as numerous times a day, the bigger chores tend to be put off. Not only that, but I have a certain little "helper" which is GREAT, except that his idea of "helping" is actually making my job much more difficult. The chores I've put off just get worse and worse until I simply don't want to do them at all anymore. It's a losing battle and I often go to bed at night feeling unaccomplished, because that is when I start thinking about all of the areas where I "slacked off." 


It came to me one day, and now I think I've found a solution to all of this, at least for me. I'm really successful with to-do lists so I figured it would be a good start in feeling more accomplished. Also, (just a little bit of trivia) the body releases more endorphins from crossing off a completed task from a list then it does when we smile. So with these things in mind, I made a list of all the household chores that I feel need to be done. This list included tasks often forgotten about like cleaning the kitchen appliances, wiping down blinds, dusting, even washing the dogs. But also included more important tasks like mopping, cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming area rugs etc. I broke them all down and created a note for each one on how often each chore should be completed based on how quickly I've noticed each gets dirty (i.e. every other day, once a week, or once a month). I then created a key for the entire month by the week, which will be my outline for continuing months if this strategy ends up being successful for me. I separated all of the chores and spread them out over the course of the week where in the end, in addition to the tasks done every day, I only need to complete one or two of these bigger tasks. I figured I could handle only completing a few tasks a day and If I'm successful I anticipated I would feel more accomplished. If I'm not successful some days (as I can guarantee will happen), I will feel less like a failure because only a couple of things were left undone, not an ongoing list of ten or more, therefore a feeling more towards a win-win. 


This is the end of the first week of using my new system, and I love it so far!! Instead of having multiple things to do, feeling overwhelmed about it and not knowing even where to start, I already have it written out. I even created a section to check off the completed chores to release those endorphin's, and boy does it feel good to check them off! I also included larger random tasks of things I would like to get done within the month, like organize the junk drawer that's over flowing or take down the Christmas lights from the outside of the house, (things that often get forgotten about over and over again). I took the time to create this list and cut into my sleeping time to do so and it's now saving me a ton of grief and feelings of unaccomplishments in my every day life. The lack of sleep the night I took time to create it, definitely is paying off. I know this whole system sounds completely dorky, but it works for me, and that's the only thing that matters!


Here's an example of my spreadsheet:

Dreaded Hours of 4pm-6pm

Whether you're a working Mom or a Stay at Home Mom, I can almost guarantee we all can relate to the dreaded time frame of 4:00PM-6:00PM. This is the time during the day where our child (or children) seem to  absolutely lose it. Whether you've just gotten home to relieve the nanny, just picked your child up from daycare or you're just trying to make dinner, we are all faced with similar scenarios of over the top, dramatically cranky little people. They are hungry, sleepy and exhausted from their day, and whether it's your first time seeing them since early that morning or you've been with them all day, they really don't seem to care. Eventually we start to feel like we're losing our minds along with them. Poor hubby's probably feel like the whole household has gone nuts, he might even start to feel a little nuts himself. Reality is, this is just how it is, our little angels have been so busy all day that during this time it feels to them how we might feel at 10pm. So, how do we overcome it? Unfortunately, I don't have the answer to that, I certainly wish I did. In my opinion I feel it's all about how we manage our time. The biggest lesson I've learned this past year as a new Momma is to try and avoid unwanted situations. And what I mean by that is to try to recognize what triggers certain outcomes and if we want to create a different outcome avoid those triggers. For instance, when I'm attempting to cook dinner between 4-6 it creates the worst outcome for us. Elijah will hang onto my legs, cry to me "up, up", gets into drawers, terrorize the dogs etc. And when I tell him he is not to be in the kitchen (a rule I've been trying to enforce, for what seems like forever) he cries or falls into complete tantrum mode. Now, thankfully this doesn't happen every evening, partly because sometimes he's perfectly content in playing with his toys just long enough for me to get the food onto the stove, partly because Dad is home to help distract, and partly because sometimes I'm actually successful in avoiding the situation all together. For me I have found Crock Pots and preparing dinners earlier to have worked wonders. This way I'm not busy when he starts to melt down and I can attend to him rather than shooing him out of the kitchen. I also have come to realize that it doesn't always happen this way. Whether it's because the day was busy and preparing dinner early simply just didn't happen, or I was at work for most of the day and so dinner became last on the agenda, or I was feeling lazy, we are always thrown for a loop if the schedule is altered. And lets face it, it's usually always altered in one way or another. Either way, it's inner strength we have to find and it's a day by day process. If there's a tantrum, it comes and then it goes and  they eventually go to sleep; even if it's hours later, at some point they sleep. We constantly are shown that what worked yesterday may not necessarily work today. It can feel like a losing battle at times, but if you're a Momma out there feeling like what I've described; know that you're not alone and that there's at least me out here feeling the same way.

Veggies - To Decieve or Not Decieve

April 22, 2011

As an infant beginning to eat real food, Elijah ate EVERYTHING. And when I say everything I'm not exaggerating. I'm talking even the veggies; spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, etc. We honestly would hesitate sometimes on giving him more food because he would eat so much it worried us that we might over feed him. However, with hearing about some of my fellow Momma's having trouble getting their babies to eat certain things or eat anything at all, I began to feel a little better. I thought, at least this is a battle we won't have to have with him at dinner time later. Boy did I speak too soon, this was just a battle we were going to encounter at a later time. The deeper into toddlerhood he gets the more picky he gets. Currently he won't eat anything green (literally). 

As you can see, the zucchini was picked out of the spaghetti.

And he doesn't like oatmeal, doesn't like rice, is picky about meat, will eat fruit but can be picky about it. Basically anything healthy he's not as enthusiastic about. As for cheerios, cheese, bread, crackers, or also known as CARBS, these are the foods he's most keen on. But I've found a system, and for any of you Mom's out there who are struggling with something similar, this works for us!

First, it's important to understand serving sizes, which may lower some stress levels for you if your child isn't eating the foods that you feel are healthy for him. This definitely helped me calm down a bit about it. The easiest scale is 1 tablespoon per year of age as a serving size. Toddlers need roughly 4 servings of fruits and veggies, 2 servings of protein, 16-24 ounces of dairy and 4 servings of grains. At 1 tablespoon per serving, we're not talking much! For us, the part we struggle with most are the veggies, so sometimes I sneak these veggies into his food. I puree' the veggies he's not too fond of and put them in highly preferred foods. Cauliflower in eggs,  squash in mac-n-cheese or grilled cheese, (although sometimes he'll eat squash by itself) broccoli in stew, and pretty much anything (like mushrooms or zucchini) in spaghetti or burgers. Guess what? He eats it all up!! In addition I put whatever veggies we're having for dinner on his plate in attempt to get him to eat them by themselves too.

This method I have found from talking to other Moms is pretty controversial. As some are opposed to it due to feeling like the method deceives our children. My answer to that is when they are between the ages of 1-3 their communication is pretty limited. With that, in my opinion, there's really no benefit to battling at the dinner table trying to explain to your toddler why it's important they eat their veggies. Following with feeling like your failing your child by not giving him the essential nutrients he needs because in the end he wouldn't eat them anyway, or he even spit them out. Not only that, but I don't feel it's beneficial to turn eating into a negative activity, it will just cause additional problems down the line later. So until we can have that dialog between us, why not give him the veggies he needs into his food, offer some on the side but not making vegetables the center of attention. We can worry about having that conversation as to why eating veggies are important later when he can understand? Works for us! I feel a lot better, Elijah is eating good nutritious food, and dinner is stress free! 

A Day With Vinny

I do believe that Momma's reach a certain point when they start considering more children even when their first child is still young. It's like we forget everything we went through, everything we're going through, and everything we would be setting ourselves up for by having another child. While preggo, I used to be really concerned with the pain of child birth and I questioned if I would be able to handle it or not. My Mom used to continue to tell me, "I'm going to be honest, because it definitely does hurt, but it's a pain you forget." I kept thinking she was crazy, how could you forget it? How could you ever want to put yourself through that again? Well she was right, you forget it. And remarkably almost instantly, right when they place that little human in your arms. From that point forward you are faced with a million new concepts, a million questions that weren't covered in the books you've read, and dealing with emotions that take over and force you to tears for minuscule reasons... of course you forget the child birth pain, because now you have too many other things to think about.
I feel that the more Mom's I talk to the majority (however not all) would prefer to have their children close in age. Close in age, meaning 1-3 years apart. Considering a 9 month long pregnancy we're talking becoming pregnant pretty close to after your first child is born. Along with pain, I think we forget the work that goes along with every day in raising a newborn.

I had my first taste of what having a second child around would be like this past weekend. A really good friend of mine asked me to watch her son (4 months) while she was at work. I eagarly agreed, as I was excited to have a baby in the house again! But let me tell you, even though Vincent is a very easy going baby, we had our struggling moments and those struggling moments stemmed from my son. At 15 months he had no idea what was going on, who this little person was, or why the hell he was here, therefore resulting in major jealousy. He wanted to be held, he wanted to "help," and he wanted to "play" with the baby. There was a lot of  "No Eli, be gentle! He's just a baby!" or "I will get to you in a second Elijah, the baby needs his diaper changed" (as he is hanging on my legs). I realized that having your first child be so young with a new baby around makes it very difficult to get through every day tasks or to explain things to him so that he understands what is going on.

Elijah: "C'mon, lemme just touch your nose!"

On the controversy, after raising an infant and now toddler and then going back to an infant, I quickly learned how easy it is to in fact take care of a newborn. I realize now that I should have taken time to appreciate the naps with the baby on my chest, the constant sleeping throughout the day (even if the naps seemed short), the fact that the baby usually does one of three things; eat, sleep, poop and there's not much in between, the down time and the fact that if you leave the baby laying on the blanket he doesn't move! At the time this was all clouded with exhaustion, and my focus was on how tired I was and how hard this really seemed to be. Now, whenever the time comes for us to expand our family, the infant stage is not going to be as seemingly low key as before. From this point forward there will always be another little human running around trying to "help," wanting attention, probably not napping while the new baby is, and when that baby is laying on the blanket without rolling off, he may be possibly being moved by his older brother.

Note: Elijah has had zero interest in this play mat
for months, until of course Vince was in it!

Moral of the story: This is dedicated to the new Momma's out there or the Momma's to be. ENJOY and APPRECIATE your delicate time with your newborn, even though I know it gets cloudy when you're sleep deprived and you haven't showered. Unless you're choosing to only have one child, it'll never be as easy as it is now to raise a newborn.

Teething and the Silver Lining

I think if you talk to most Mom's (or Dad's even) out there they will all agree that teething is a NIGHTMARE! And, I have to agree. Sleepless nights, fevers, cranky babies, babies in pain (and there's nothing you can do), not to mention they begin to resist your love and affection because they realize that you aren't going to take the actual pain away, they have diaper rashes, loss of appetites, clingy-ness, etc. It's just a mess, and we all go through it. Sometimes parent's have a more difficult time and others have it easier but that's pretty much across the board with all parenting milestones. BUT, I have found the silver lining.... remember purees, and steamed food? Dicing up food into little tiny pieces? All I remember is time consumption! 

Silver lining and of course it comes with time, and when the first molars are there, but whole fruits and/or veggies, in this particular case an apple. The pictures are blurry because the little monster kept moving. But I was sitting on the couch folding laundry watching him, and thinking this is SO much easier! He's hungry? Grab an apple out of the fruit basket and presto! He's happy, and you're not dicing, steaming, pureeing and feeding.

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say the teething process was completely worth it especially with the number two molars that are around the corner, but it certainly is providing a little more independence for my son and a little more Momma time (to fold laundry).

Even Banana's are easier!

Liberated

Should a new Mom feel obligated to return to work, or obligated to stay at home with her child? How does she decide? Do we even have that option, to decide what we want to do after having children, given the way our country works? I've been struggling with this decision of going back to work (or not) and debating it's worth for a while now. For me, I didn't have a job to go back to (seeing as though I was laid off while preggo) and so going back to work for me was starting at the bottom of the totem pole again. Of course two incomes would make things much easier for us, but going back to work for me basically meant going to work to pay for a daycare, and so for a long time I went with the decision of it not being worth it. As Elijah gets older, I start to realize how much he might benefit from daycare to create a change in scenery for him, provide socialization, help him become comfortable with separation from me, and most importantly provide a break for myself. With those feelings, I began to look for work. I landed a few interviews and aced them all. I went from having no job to 3 or 4 different opportunities for jobs. One might think I was crazy, seeing the economy is the way it is, to know that I turned them all down. Each job had their separate reasons as to why they weren't going to work for me. Located too far, too much work for little pay, or too much time away from my family. I was told by many people how emotionally charged my decisions seemed to be and that maybe I should respect the fact that I simply just don't want to leave Elijah behind. Although partly true, I knew I just hadn't found something that perfectly fit my objective. Then again this objective had certainly left me thinking maybe I had set my hopes too high.

First day of daycare, first nap. A breeze!
8/26/2011
Thank you to Stacy Kelly for her awesome care,
and cooperation with us! :)

It's been a couple weeks, and  feel I have found a happy medium to my dilemma, and I'm so glad I followed my heart and waited for what felt right. I landed a part-time job in a field that I'm very interested in, it is local to my home and to Elijah's daycare and I couldn't be happier. The money I make basically only pays for the daycare but the sense of sanity I receive is by far the best payment that there is. I love my son, but any job where one is working 24 hours around the clock can and will be exhausting. I didn't feel like I was giving Elijah my all anymore because I was always feeling that I had so many other things that also needed to get done, and multi-tasking was taking precious time away from him. Now, on work days, I take Elijah to daycare an hour earlier, and that hour allows me to get so much more done. With that, the majority of the day that I do spend with him, is actually spent with him and only him. He gets the best of both worlds; one-on-one time with Momma, socialization with other children, and discipline from another caregiver. The job is very part-time but I receive a sense of being in the real world, which has helped in more ways than can be imagined. In addition, I still feel like I have a huge part in raising my son. Don't get me wrong, I've now added another task to my to-do list and now that is just one extra thing to get done in my already crazy day. However, the liberation I feel, has allowed me to stay motivated and I have found myself completing more of my at home duties, and not feeling so stressed out and frustrated about them. The combination of letting go of the idea of having to end each day in completion, with feeling like an adult again has brought me into a new light. I'm excited to journey down this road. I feel accomplished, and that I have found a little more of myself, and in result I feel like I'm being a better parent to my son.

Sense of Accomplishment...or not

While in the working field full time one of my positive attributes was my desire to finish projects once started. I would stay late, work from home, or come in early if I could not get the task finished within normal working hours. Sometimes this got the best of me, and exhausted me, but the sense of accomplishment was what made it worth it. This is something I'm struggling with as a Full-time Momma. If you have read my earlier post "Nonexistent" I talked about how Salary.com computed a study of the jobs that a Stay-At-Home mom is responsible for. With that list as a guide, when I go to bed at night the sense of feeling unaccomplished of my responsibilities is sometimes overwhelming. It just isn't possible to finish everything that needs to be done. Some days are far worse than others as it depends on how Elijah's day is going. Recently he's become very clingy and seemingly not stimulated enough. He follows me around, but if I sit down to play with him he ignores me. If I'm trying to do dishes, he hangs on my legs and cries, same when I'm attempting to cook dinner. Forget cleaning anything, as he's right there getting into cabinets, or trying to "help." As you can imagine, him "helping" although incredibly adorable, actually creates more work for me. And so, during "working hours" (aka when Elijah is awake), I've now given up on expecting to accomplish any tasks and if I do complete something I take it as a bonus. This still doesn't make me feel accomplished, because deep down I'm aware that things weren't finished (or even started for that matter), and it's unsettling.

Just a glimpse of what happens while I'm attempting to cook.

Naps: Sometimes It's one nap, sometimes it's two separate naps, either way it buys me a total of somewhere between 30 minutes to 2 hours. It is absolutely overwhelming trying to decide what to do in the precious time that he's asleep. There's a catch to this too, as when I do attempt to be productive he almost always wakes up early, (30 minute nap). The slightest noise will wake him. Then, when I decide to stay low key (in other words quiet) he takes a long fulfilled nap. Which results with me feeling unproductive, lazy and that I've just wasted 2 hours of quality time where I could have accomplished something. 


Evenings: ...7:30-8PM roll around and my little angel goes to sleep for the night. This is when for an instant I feel a much needed break, I sit down on the couch and let out a big sigh. It's then I realize how many things still need to get done. At this point I'm exhausted just from the day, and I just want to go to bed. Some times, I do just go to bed and that's coupled with lack of feeling accomplished and also guilty. These feelings take away the beautiful feeling of being able to go to sleep. It feels like a lose-lose situation and I struggle with it every day. Even writing this blog entry is taking precious time away from what I "should" be doing, which is almost always the case with writing all of my blogs. 
(insert time stamp of 5:30AM, blogging before he wakes up this morning.)


Where do I go from here? How do I attack it? How do I balance taking care of a home and child and Joel, be a good friend, walk the dogs, work,  AND find time for myself to read, blog, enjoy a glass of wine or work out? How do I find a sense of accomplishment in my day to day activities, when I can't hide from the fact that my to-do list isn't completed and every day unfinished tasks flood into my next days to-do list? Does every Momma out there feel this way, or have I just not gotten a handle on the Super Mom role? Finding a balance would benefit my sanity and every day life enormously. Why haven't I found it?