Unending Torture

I narrowly avoided one of those horrible mothering moments. You know the one when you are just a breathe away from yelling "I wish you all would just leave! I can't take it any more!" Of course, I took a breathe before the words escaped and pushed those feelings into the deep recesses of my brain (probably the exact location of the pounding tension headache that came on that afternoon).

What prompted that overwhelming desire to erase my family from the face of the Earth? I was cleaning the house, AGAIN! I feel like I'm in that story where the Titian (or was it a god) was damned to push the same heavy bolder to the top of a mountain everyday, only to wake up the next morning and find it at the bottom again. My house is never freakin' clean. I feel like I waste so much time picking up junk, wiping up gunk, and sweeping up muck. It's my own personal Groundhog Day. I also know that every parent (let's face it mostly mothers) go through this everyday. Yet, I find no comfort in that. They aren't here with me as I am crawling under beds pulling out Polly Pocket shoes (the inventor of that toy is a true sadist). Nor are they here to lend a hand as I scrub God knows what from under the toilet.

I have tried saying "Forget it!" and skipping cleaning. Well, you can read past posts and find out how well that turns out for me. Nobody has clean underwear and the children end up eating cereal out of mugs. Besides, I can't relax in a messy house (please don't confuse messy with cluttered, two different beasts). The last time I "went on strike," I was trying to calmly cross stitch when a giant dust bunny rolled over to me to complain about the lack of food and that it wanted to watch TV. It took a minute to realize that dust bunny was actually Lily, covered with a fine layer of dog fur and Popsicle sticky. Just kidding, it never gets that bad. I skip one day of bathroom wipe down and we have red ick growing around the drain and I feel like the worst mother ever.

As I relayed this to Rob, he responds "Well, you really only have about 8 more years of hardcore mess. Then the kids will be gone." Great, now on top of exhausted and frustrated, I am sad at the idea of my babies leaving the nest. Stick around girls, I'll deal with your mess!