Opinion, Parenting

From an overwhelmed parent

I am pretty sure this blog pos was due sometime ago. I have been reminded numerous times about writing a blog post yet somehow I seem to always forget when it is “due”. The past two weeks three of my five children have been home a combined 18 days sick, my nanny has been out 4 days and today we got 9 inches of snow and my business is closed. I woke with a fever Saturday and have not shaken it yet. My body aches, my kids are now healthy and bored asking, no begging, to go outside and play in the snow. It is the idea of it all, the preparation, getting them dressed and moving away from the couch that has me overwhelmed. I don’t see it happening anytime soon today. When I experience a moment such as I am now, the feeling of being swamped, overwhelmed or spiraling out of control I have one thing in my life I have complete control over. A 3 foot space of my kitchen counter. This is not a joke. I am serious. So much of my life is out of my control. The weather shut my business down today; I will go unpaid as a result. I cannot change that. My kids and my nanny were all sick not too long ago and again I lost wages, time and worried about them. I also caught their flu. All out of my control despite my compulsive hand washing and taking vitamin c as if it were candy on Halloween. It is my kitchen counter top I am in control of at all times. I keep this one small space neat, tidy and obsessively clean. My husband, my kids, my employees all mock me for this. I can be found any number of times during my busy work day wiping it down with Lysol sanitizing wipes. I will scratch away residue or sticky things left behind. I will often run my hand over it, marveling at how clean it is. I admire its beige, boring, blank façade. It is the only part of my life I am in fact in complete control of and I am fine with that. Thinking about this obsession with cleaning the counter might evoke the idea that my home is all neat and tidy. Not really. I have toys everywhere, books line every shelf and my foyer resembles a second hand shoe store. It is not that I am a neat freak. I wish I were. I am more likely to be described as the master of organized chaos. I have paper piles that only I know the contents of. It’s my own little system that works for me. Some day’s things just run amuck and out of my control. Kids get sick, unexpected bills come, life happens and I can feel defeated by anyone of those things and together it can feel insurmountable. Yet despite these challenges I do my best to run a very efficient household. I manage my children’s day to day activities, I run an amazing home based business that supports my family and I have a rather satisfying personal life. But when something goes amiss, and it usually does, I retreat to my kitchen. I bake bread; I cook a meal, make soup and then clean my small counter top. It restores me, brings me back to the simplicity I crave when all else is loud, overwhelming and wearing me down. This all sounds so silly, trivial perhaps. There are some days where keeping that counter clean is the only thing I have control over. My children bring me pride and joy, my work brings me personal and professional satisfaction and my clean counter, well it keeps me grounded and keeping it clean keeps my perspective in control.