I am sitting on my couch, nursing my week old baby, watching Miss Muffet tear around the house and trying to avoid looking at all the chaos and mess around me.
The pile of washing to be folded keeps catching my eye. The washing in the machine keeps nagging at me to go and hang it on the line. I can see every crumb and speck on the carpet. The breakfast dishes and empty milk jug are calling to me from the kitchen bench. It feels like Miss Muffet has strewn every single toy she owns from one end of the house to the other.
I would turn around and hop back into bed, if only they didn't need changing!
I hear you laughing and saying how I need to just focus on looking after my two girls and that the housework will always be there.... But it's hard.
For the last ten or so years ( coincidentally since I have known Action Dad!) I have become increasingly organised and routined. It brings me a huge amount of peace and satisfaction to know that every Tuesday the bathrooms will be cleaned and that every single pair of brightly coloured tights can be found in their drawer in Miss Muffet's room next to her little singlets. I am one of those people who writes a weekly agenda and knows exactly when I can fit in grocery shopping, visits to the park and mopping the floor.
Whenever life intervenes and reminds me that actually no, I am not in control of everything, and the proverbial poo hits the fan, I don't cope all that well.
Everything piles up around me and becomes unmanageable and I find myself lying on the couch watching Toddlers and Tiaras marathons and hoping I can create a dinner out of the half pumpkin, oven chips and relish floating around in the fridge. It literally feels like everything is too hard and I can't find a place to even start. Once Miss Muffet arrived, I really couldn't cope with feeling out of control, so employed my control freak cleaning schedule, weekly routine and meal planning missions.
My cleaning schedule is based off of the one below, just rearranged to suit our week and adapted to fit our house's needs.
Credit: www.bonfiresandwine.com
I like doing half an hour or so of cleaning each week day as opposed to doing a total clean, one day a week. And I know that even though Miss Muffet is actually moonlighting as a professional house demolition crew, the major jobs are done each week.
But now we have welcomed Buttons into our family and we are all shifting and readjusting our lives. We have chosen to breastfeed which means a lot of couch time and when I am not feeding, I am changing kids clothes, making snacks and dinners and making sure that I spend some time with Miss Muffet. Poor wee thing is used to Mumma being available to her nearly all of the time and has not really cottoned on this whole sharing palaver.
So, I am having to turn off my inner control freak and ignore the fact that our house is not as clean as I would like. Life will eventually settle into a routine, albeit new, and I will find new ways to juggle a busy house and home.
Because what is really important at the end of the day, and what my family will remember, is the cuddles and love and fun that we share. There are no awards for having the cleanest home and no one is going to report me for feeding my family cheese on toast and the odd takeaway over the coming weeks. What really matters is the time spent together.
My gorgeous girl with the button nose - just like her mum and sister xxx