Confessions of a Working Mom

After being told again for the 798th time what a supermom I am and how can I do it all and so on....I decided to squelch my big headed pride and publish the truth. I can't do it all by myself. With God as my strength and my family beside me, near me, under me, and sometimes on top of my head or where ever they decide to sit; I can do anything. I don't have to come home and do a ton of chores at the end of the day because my kids (after much duress and threats sometimes) have a list of chores they have to finish in order to breathe, I mean eat, I mean live here. Oh well, you get the idea. I really do praise them for what they have accomplished. True confessions~Zac does 90% of the laundry while working a full time job. I do the dedicates so he doesn't lose any fingers or appendages. (No, Zac is not dunking Joseph in that pic. He is trying to help him pick up a shell without getting waved.) Natalie does the dishes and 93% of the time remembers that the knives, bamboo and other precious Pampered Chef items don't go in the dishwasher. She likes her fingers too. She also cleans the kitchen most of the time as well as watches her younger siblings half the week. We have a most awesome babysitter that does the other half. WE LOVE YOU MEGAN! The rest of the kids make a big huge mess so they can show me how well they can clean up. One of these days I will have to take a picture just so you can see I am not lying. My kids are normal. I do have days where I lose my patience and don't understand why they didn't notice all the toys and clothes they were walking on or pushing over because it was too painful to walk on just so they can walk across the room to get to the other side. I also have days when I come home to "what chores" and "there's a list?" Then there are the days when I realize that all that frustration is just me wanting to be home with my kids instead of being at work. But this is LIFE and sometimes life requires hard things. All of us moms need to realize that the dirt will not always be there and we aren't taking it into eternity, but are we impacting our children for eternity with everything we do and say. Am I going to let up on the chore list? Aboslutely not! Life requires responsibility and kids need to learn it early or they turn into something we read about in the paper or they don't turn out at all. But, I do need to let up on the reaction and lovingly tell my kids that they can eat as soon as the house is clean. Speaking of clean, time for another confession. I have a most awesome domestic engineer that comes and cleans my house once a month and I will never go back to not having it done even if it means eating beans every day! Well, I will have to think about that one. AMY GREEN is amazing!! Dust bunnies hide in fear of being sucked in the vortex. So, in the words of a local wise man, I will stop telling my kids 100 times or more, "Don't forget..." and instead I will say, "Remember..." So, Zac, remember to take the trash out Wednesday morning so we can start parking in the garage again. Oh, and please remember to do the laundry when you come home. There are cobwebs forming on the hangars in my closet and the handles of my dresser. Natalie, remember the dishes need to be clean before we eat, the kids need to eat twice a day while I am gone and the sun will not vanish in the next ten minutes while you tidy up. Emily, Naomi, and Joseph, remember to keep your toys picked up so we don't have to go to the ER again this weekend. Please remember to be nice to each other and keep the hands and feet and teeth to yourself. Thank you to each one of you, my kids, for helping take care of our family. I love you! Mama B as Levi would say.