Good Enough

On Memorial Day I got up and took my boys to the Air Zoo; a pretty cool air and space science museum nearby. As we were getting ready to leave, I began to panic a little at the pile of dishes and general state of disarray of my house.

I knew a woman once who said she vacuums every day because she likes the lines. Okay. Somebody shoot me if I ever have enough time on my hands to vacuum every day--just for the lines. I admit it, there are things that I frankly find to be more pressing and more important than immaculate housekeeping--though I do find value and import in a clean home. Or clean enough.

I'm coming to terms with my attitude toward housekeeping. There is this little voice inside me that yells: How will your boys ever learn the value of a clean dwelling place if the home they grow up in is a disaster?

Likewise there is another voice in my head that screams: These children will not be children for long, enjoy the here and now, enjoy them, enrich their lives, housekeeping can wait. And I imagine long years of having plenty of time to clean my house.

Then, lest you think I just might not be schizophrenic, there is yet another often louder voice that yells: Hey you! Slob! How dare you go to bed with dirty dishes in your sink! And check out that toilet! Wow, wish someone would vacuum around here! Because you and I have both been in one of those houses--you know what I mean right? Where you can't get out soon enough, where you don't dare let your child off your lap, where the countertop has not been visible in some months. And it's not so much that I want to judge the cleanliness of someone else's home, it's just that I fear that I have reached that point unawares.

But then, there is another voice that quietly soothes: A day or two of clutter is easily rectified and is not so important as the time you spend with your children. A wise man said: If you are still in the process of raising children, be aware that the tiny fingerprints that show up on almost every newly cleaned surface, the toys scattered about the house, the piles and piles of laundry to be tackled will disappear all too soon and that you will—to your surprise—miss them profoundly.

So, my new philisophy on motherhood and a clean house--Cleaning will wait, childhood won't. I do my best to keep up with it all, but frankly, some things are more important and although those voices still scream at me, I'm learning to ignore them--or at least drown them out.

A wise woman I knew once said that housekeeping partially done, still blesses my family. I like to chant this to myself (and to the voices in my head) every time I quickly, but partially clean the bathroom, or do enough dishes to fill the dishwasher and (heaven forbid) leave the rest to another load in the morning rather than staying up to spotlessly hand wash every last dish. I've learned from too much experience that staying up too late to complete some domestic duty on the pretense of blessing my family actually results in marked detriment to my family in the form of my exhaustion and complete lack of patience the following day. So nowadays, I go to bed, regardless of the dishes sitting in the sink. Oh, and sometimes, I neglect my blog too. Sorry. Oops, look at the time. I must to bed.