Work and Play

This has been an in-between sort of week. Just the regular routine. No camps, no trips, extra time at home. Time to play and time to work on some domestic skills.

The boys are learning to make spaghetti sauce and peach crisps. They argued with me at the beginning. "Why can't we grow up to eat pizza and cereal all the time?" But, once they got their hands dirty, they were all smiles and pleased with how their dishes turned out.

My house is a museum of crunchy laundry this week. The dryer went out, and every available space has some drippy clothes hanging across it. My man and the internet are going to attempt to learn about circuit board repairs. We will remember to add soft, fluffy underwear to our gratitude list as a result of this detour from convenience.

What I am reading:

"We forget that each person is a mystery to be explored and appreciated, someone with whom we can connect and for whom we can pray." - chapter 5 "Being Present for Others" in Jan Johnson's Enjoying the Presence of God book.

I enjoyed my children today. I enjoyed them when we drove to music lessons and training sessions. I enjoyed going to Target together. I enjoyed reading books together and going to the library. I enjoyed singing songs from musicals at the top of our lungs driving back and forth down the highway. I enjoyed playing "restaurant" when the girls wanted to pretend that they were chefs and servers. We even lit candles and played soft music for ambience.

I enjoyed that they are at an age where they can entertain themselves upstairs while I laid out laundry all over our house to dry. I enjoyed them...until I took one look at the wreckage of their rooms and found them all camped in front of the t.v. with shoes and pillows and blankets dumped in every direction. Stuff strewn from here to there. Trash on the floor and not in the trash can. No one in the least bit concerned, but completely absorbed in the tales of King Arthur. One glance and something inside me snapped. Fun mom turned into army sergeant mom. All business. Show's over.

They vacuumed up hamster litter and fingernail glitter. They picked up 1000 rainbow loom bands, Legos, and marbles from the marble chutes. They washed dishes and emptied trash cans. They cleaned the van. They cleaned the silly string that one child sprayed over every surface he could find in the yard and garage. The boys cloroxed the floor where someone had mis-aimed in a hurry (probably to get back to the t.v.) and an enormous blob of gum that never made it into the trash can. We pulled socks and underwear out from under the beds. More than once a child asked if I was ok. "No," I replied, "and you will never see the television again if your rooms look like this." I was not kidding.

We finished well. I calmed down from my cleaning fury. We put the house back in acceptable (though not perfect) order. We read another story and gave goodnight hugs and kisses. I still don't know if they will ever care about cleanliness and order themselves, but at least I will know they have some skills to manage their own chaos.

I pray that we will find the balance between work and play. That I will teach them well, but not spend so much time managing them that I forget to enjoy them and appreciate them...We'll see how I do tomorrow...and how long those rooms stay clean.