A Road Less Travelled

Theresa and Moriah left this morning on Moriah’s special tenth birthday trip to St. Louis. The first thing that strikes me about this is that four is such a small number of children to deal with. Two years ago I would have been on edge trying to keep everything under control, wondering if I could make it for two days with Theresa gone. Today I have only a general awareness that I need to pay attention to what’s going on because Theresa isn’t here to keep the house running smoothly. Before I moved up here I had a general understanding of how this whole homemaking and raising children activity worked. If I’d gotten married immediately on graduating from high school I could have stepped into the role and wife and later mother much more smoothly than many teenage girls could. But knowing how to do something is entirely different from doing it over and over again every day. When I first learned to crochet I understood how the stitches worked, but it took a lot of concentration just to make one stitch. Now I can crochet (often without any official pattern) while carrying on a conversation or planning out a writing project in my head–because I have experience. Theresa can leave for two days, and though I’m not as experienced as she is, I can take over the house with very few snags. The second thought I’ve had is this–I haven’t gotten a lot done this morning. I ran the breakfast dishes through the dishwasher, but they haven’t been put away yet. I got a load of my laundry washed and in the dryer, and had the boys put away their clean laundry, but that’s about it. Except for one other thing–I haven’t yelled at the children yet. Okay, technically I yelled once, but only because they having a fight at a pretty impressive volume level of their own. Let’s say I haven’t lost my temper with the children yet. It may not look so impressive on the to-do list, but I’ve finally figured something out. When I’m conscious of having a very productive day I tend to get focused on that and make grandiose plans for being yet more productive. Then when the children throw off my schedule by a few precious seconds I get snappish. I’m not at all against productivity. In fact, I’m in favor of it. But sometimes focusing on productivity is a very bad thing. Today would be one of those times. On the other hand, I probably should go produce some lunch for hungry children before they become cranky children. And after I clean up the kitchen from that I could grind some wheat. And wash the windows. And shine the doorknobs. And… Then again, maybe not.