I hear it all the time from moms. Goodness, I sit knee-deep in it myself most days – This feeling of being behind, overwhelmed with the undone.
I wonder if you could find a mom (a woman) these days who would tell you she’s all caught up? If she exists, I haven’t found her yet to beg of her the secret to her success. That’s what we all want right? The secret to success.
It stinks to look around and constantly see and sense the undone. It weighs on a mind like a thousand pounds and doesn’t want to share space with the present moment. And that’s the struggle right there – to be in the moment and push away the undone screaming for attention like a toddler throwing a tantrum.
But let’s talk about that tantrum throwing toddler for a moment (the real one, not the metaphorical one).
We tend to look at life as a to do list that needs to get done. We set our priorities and work our way through them in a day, a week, a month, a year… But I wonder if we are prioritizing things all wrong? What if the toddler’s tantrum was right there on our to do list? They’re bound to happen right? It’s part of our life to learn patience with a toddler and for a toddler to learn self-control from us. So shouldn’t it be a priority?
Laundry or Tantrum? The tantrum should be on the to do list. The laundry? Well, it can wait.
How about breaking up sibling fights? It’s the same thing. We don’t want to deal with them. We wish them away, sigh and gripe that they occur but how else are our children going to learn to deal with and be kind to other people unless we teach them? These arguments always seem like an interruption in our day but I am beginning to think that “big ol’ smack down between siblings 2 and 3” should be on my daily to-do list (at least for a season).
Spilled milk anyone?
My to-do list usually consists of bills to pay, errands to run, cleaning, home projects to get to and writing work to finish. Those are all necessary things but they aren’t always the most important. I am learning to build margin in my day for the mom things that usually catch me off guard and leave me frustrated. When things happen and my kids need me in ways that keep me from my to do list, the burden of not getting things done makes me lose patience, feel overwhelmed and sometimes I just want to quit (or eat a plate-full of brownies while locked in my closet). However, if “Things not going as planned” is already part of my expectations for my day while raising children, I will succeed in checking that box off every single time.
I guess what I am saying here is – Let’s not shoot for the stars moms. Let’s write down our agendas loosely each day and make up our minds to put “being a mom and all that entails” towards the top of the list and remember that means it’s more important than getting much else done.
