Do you ever feel that as a mom, you’ll never have nice things? Your clothes will never be clean while you wear them, and your house will just never look nice. From having stains on the carpet, to marker on your wall. Some days I feel like I’m chasing this dream that will never come to reality.
For instance, we’ve been working off and on with renovating our living room. Knut installed a fireplace last year. This year he hopes to finish the front of it, and frame out the wood box. Then one day, Elias decides to play near the wood box. He’s the child that plays so quietly and nicely all by himself all the time, that we often forget that he can get into trouble. When he does, it’s usually very quietly and innocently. So while he was so nice and quiet in the other room, he was pulling apart the wall.
Nice, right? Let me tell you, Knut is just so excited to fix that. Not only that, you may notice…
He got a hold of some Crayola markers as well. Sigh. It will come off, but there are things I’d rather be doing. Those two aren’t the worst of it.
Yesterday, I was taking pictures of the kids, and set my camera down for a moment on a high shelf in the dining room. Apparently, he likes to push chairs to high shelves and climb up these days because guess what he found? That’s right, the new Canon 30d that I’ve been saving and saving for and just so barely got went crashing to the ground. The camera seems to be working fine, but the best lens it came with is not. Something is wrong with the zoom lens that has all the fun automatic features, and so I had to take it off and put on the 50mm non-zooming, nothing automatic lens it came with. I actually have know what I’m doing to take a picture now. Sometime next week when traveling isn’t so dangerous with subzero temperatures, I’ll get it looked at by a camera repair guy and see what kind of damage we’re talking about. Right now it won’t focus, and the cover is jammed on.
I nearly lost my cool when it happened. Yes, it was probably my fault that it didn’t go back in the case, it was set on a shelf out of the way. I like to have the camera out and available. Still, it set me off on a tangent of “why can’t I have nice stuff!” Most days I try really really hard, and succeed in seeing the joy in being a mother of four. There is so much joy and laughter in my job.
Some days, though, it’s all I can do to not pull out all my hair and scream at the top of my lungs. Like when someone goes into my sewing room (an off limits room for the kids) and pulls my work off of knitting needles and unravels hours of work. That hasn’t happened in the last month or so, but it has happened.
Part of me wants to throw up my hands and stop trying. I should stop trying to have a life, have a hobby, or even attempt to have a nice looking home. Why do laundry if it will never be done no matter how I try. Why do dishes when my kitchen will look just about as messy when I’m done. Why knit when it will just be unraveled. Why paint a wall when it’s just going to be colored. Why put on clean clothes when I’ll just get spit up on, or a human booger magnet within 5 minutes anyway?
Why save up for a new camera when it’s inevitable that something will happen to it…although I wasn’t thinking that would happen so soon. It makes me nervous as we wait for the new couch to arrive. I’m bracing myself for days if not weeks of constant policing that room. Part of me asks, why bother?
That is a very good question. I’m not sure if I know the answer. I suppose because I need hope. I need to hope that there’s the possibility that maybe we’ll have something nice. I need to think that doing the dishes matters. I need to believe that 5 minutes of clean clothes on my body is worth the effort. Most of all, I can’t let my kids grow up in a home where no one tries, and everything is disorderly. I need my kids to experience what to do around nice things. If I let them grow up thinking that everything is going to waste anyway, so go ahead and destroy it, how will their life look? As much as I hate the policing that will come with the couch, my kids will learn how to treat furniture in someone else’s home. Or at least, I hope they will.
So yeah, I guess hope is the reason I still try. It’s why I still knit and sew and do laundry and buy new couches and cameras. Because I need that hope. What I have trouble dealing with, sometimes, is reality.
Mom says
January 21, 2011 at 10:42 pmOUCH! That is so discouraging! I’ll pray for an easy fix for your camera.
You know, you used to be a quiet “writer on the wall” yourself. 🙂 There is a stage in life when it seems everything you do gets undone. It will pass though and in another five years or so, things will probably be a little more sane. Love you.
Melissa says
January 22, 2011 at 3:47 amOh, Gretchen! I’m so sorry that happened! When you posted something about that on facebook I never guessed it would be your camera! I have MANY of the same feelings you wrote about…it’s very very difficult many days. I look around in dismay at the gigantic messes the kids have made, the big pile of dishes on the counter, the loads of laundry to be washed and folded, the meals to make–you know, the “routine” things that can get overwhelming. Know that you are not alone, my friend.
Penny says
January 24, 2011 at 2:59 pmI’m right there with you. I’m afraid I’m guilty of just staying in my pajamas all day because I’m too overwhelmed to get dressed. I’ve fretted over the same ideas of “why do it because it will just be the same way tomorrow – if not sooner”. Hang in there! I’m sorry about your camera, and you know, that sparked a discussion between James and I. I read him your facebook post and this post, and he looked at me and said “You would have yelled at him, even though he didn’t mean to do it.” That brought on a talk about our parenting skills. So, thank you!