My personal revelation.....

Today started pretty........ regular.  My family woke up late and thus had a late start to the day, which happens more often than I care to admit and would definitely like for it to happen.  My husband and middle two children slept in the tent last night and they were the first up.  My night was rough as I don't sleep well when my husband is not in bed beside me.  I feel comfort in knowing that he is here with me, where I feel he should be.  I was unable to make his lunch for him this morning because we were in a huge jumble.  He made his coffee, a bowl of cereal that he usually takes with him in the morning and he was off.  I had to run into town today so I told him I would bring him lunch.  As I was making my oldest two girls lunch, and my husbands lunch, we missed the bus.  It, again, happens more often than I would like.  Poor time management runs thick in this household and it drives me absolutely CRAZY.  You have no idea how much frustration it causes me.  Before I even get out of bed in the morning I know if it's going to be a "blah" day or not.  Today started that way for sure.  And you also need to know that in order for my children to get to the bus I need to drive them down my driveway, not a big deal for most children, you open the door and the bus picks them up 20 feet from your door.  Oh, how nice that would be.  Our driveway is 1 km long, yes, you read that right.  It is a 2 minute car ride from my house to the end of my driveway.  And sometimes if we see the bus we can make it half way before he gets to the end, other times we are not so lucky and then my children get that walk of shame that they made the bus wait for TWO whole minutes.  I know how hard being in elementary school is, I was there once for the longest 10 years of my life.  I was ridiculed, made fun of for things out of my control.  My brother was 4.5 years my senior and he was a bully.  So naturally when he left the school they turned to me to make up for lost time of picking on someone.  I was tortured in so many ways, talk about low self esteem.  I didn't have any.  And I don't want that for my children.  I think because of all the pain I felt growing up I may "protect" my children a little more.  Not adapting to the changing "cool" trends when my, then, 8/9 year old daughter wanted to wear jogging pants to school I said "absolutely not, I spend money buying you jeans, those are the kinds of pants you should wear to school" or dress slacks, but we reserve those for Church on Sundays.  I went on and on for days and weeks and months fighting with my daughter telling her not to wear them, she would be made fun of.  And then it hit me, we are living in the days of Lululemon, when it's cool to wear Yoga pants to school and I gave in.  I allowed her to wear them to school.  I always tell my children "pick your battles, some things won't seem so big if you think about the whole picture" And that's just what I did that day.  I realized in the changing times that she wouldn't be made fun of, in fact she would be one of the "cool girls" because she wore jogging/yoga pants to school, my how times have changed. 

  Okay, so I'm getting a little of track from today's revelation.  So, I by nature love things in my life to be organized and in it's perfect place, you never know that to look at my house.  They need to be where they make sense, to me.  If something is not where I put it when I go back for it then I do by all right, I would think, get so angry.  And it can be such a small very petty thing but I just can't control my anger, like I set my cellphone down and then we are getting ready to go and I'm trying to find it and it's not there, my husband who's outside with the children has already picked it up so I won't forget it.  That is my daily battle, okay well not daily but it does, and I am being literal, it does happen every time we leave the house together.  It is frustrating and I get mad.  I do not have a perfect house and as you read this blog and my ramblings you may think that I have a great life and have it all together and for now, I just might, but it hasn't always been that way.  I live in a "Monica closet" if any of you ever watched Friends you will understand the reference, but for those of you who don't I will explain.  I love order, everything in it's rightful place.  That is great EXCEPT I live in the closet and the apartment is my office (again in reference to the show)  You see Monica is a neat freak, that woman would not let one single dust bunny in her house I think she had an OCD

  I have gone through rough times in my life.  I went from living at home with my parents and not having to clean anything other than my room, which until I became pregnant at 17 was never as clean as it should have been.  But as soon as I was expecting my first baby my life became so much better, or at least I thought.  My boyfriend, of 2 months, and I would stay living at my parents house until our daughter was almost 1, then we went on our own.  My mom got mad, I think she knew we didn't like each other, but he lost his job and we continued to live with my family, he enjoyed the freedom to come and go as he pleased and always have food.  Didn't have to pay for anything except the gas he used to run off to his friends every night.  I thought things would get better when we moved, but the image of him telling me that I, 18 at the time I found out I was pregnant, had ruined HIS life never left my mind.  I resented him for so much, that statement especially.  I couldn't believe it, he was 7 years older than I was and he said I ruined his life, what the hell is that?  I couldn't come to terms with that, I couldn't resolve the hurt that I felt when he told me "I know what our options are" when I was going into the health clinic to find out if I was pregnant.  "Options" what options?  We did this, she is ours, or at least mine (biologically she is his, but he didn't seem to want her at the time).   And sometimes I look back wishing that I had have just broken up with him, never told him about the pregnancy and got away from it all.  But alas, if I had I never would have had my second beautiful baby girl.  The point to this story is that I was lost inside myself, hating the man I lived with and my house reflected that.

  It seems that the crazy clean freak goes into hiding when something is off in my life.  I resent the state of my messy house, but I'm too upset with outside things to motivate myself to do anything about it.  I want things clean, I know what needs to happen with my house to get them clean and yet I don't want to make the effort.  "I live with five other people who never want to help me out in keeping it clean" is the argument I have with my husband usually.

  So here it is, many years have passed since I left my cheating boyfriend, found and fell in love with the most amazing man in the whole world and yet my house is still a mess.  BUT WHY?  I ask myself all the time and it's always outside things that I can't control.  The mother in law who hates me for stealing her son from her, the crazy violent girl that my ex boyfriend married who is not allowed near my babies (for their protection since he has shown his inability to do what is best for my girls when push comes to shove, I mean if he won't protect them I have to, and of course I look like the bad one, but I would rather be the bad one that he is mad at over being the crazy one seeking revenge because something serious has happened to my babies), my husband hating his job and in turn being grumpy after work, the fact that as much as I love my family I am not happy with where our life is.  I hate our house, it has two too less bedrooms we live in a three bedroom house with six people.  We have turned our living room, that thank God is huge, into our bedroom and a toy room for the children.  We have my office and our bed on one side of a makeshift closet that is 16 feet long and 4 feet deep and 8 feet high then on the other side is the children's toy room.  Which isn't terrible because any time they are playing we can't be in our room sleeping anyway.  But that meant we had to turn our dining room into a living room, our kitchen is now a very awkward eat in kitchen and the two youngest girls share a room, our son and oldest daughter each have a room of their own.  But really the house drives me crazy.  Especially when my husband worked midnights.  So, the house is in chaos with a capital on all the letters, it's no Hoarders episode, but since my husband has developed a pack-rat approach on life thanks to living like hoarders in his mothers house for 25 years it can get pretty close sometimes.  And this is where today comes in.....

  I have spent so much time trying to figure out why my children won't help me out with at least cleaning their own rooms.  I can clean them, I just want help keeping them that way, I bought everyone closet organizers, I cleaned their rooms on my hands and knees thinking if I got it there they could easily keep it.  Well, my 10 year old is not at all tidy, my son takes all the clothes off his hangers during "nap time", I don't think he's seen the inside of those pretty lids in a long time.  But my five year old will make her bed every morning and go make everyone else's too, my one year old is a gem, she is the first to start helping mommy by putting laundry in the hamper or toys in the box, those girls have a clean room.  And I love it.  My next issue is with my husband, while trying to figure out how to help him come to terms with the pack-rattiness and stop picking up everything on the side of the road that is free, I have lost myself.  I miss myself.  I miss having everything in chronological order, I miss hanging clothes up, but my husband does a load of laundry and either takes it from the dryer and dumps it on the bed or the sofa.  I can't stand that, I don't think that's what should happen.  I have recently issued a new rule about laundry.  Everyone has their own basket and it gets filled with dirty clothes, upon becoming full it comes downstairs straight to the washer, where it is mommy or daddy's job to dump it into the machines, then straight back to their rooms it goes.  I was thrilled with this process, I thought it was the end of all my laundry problems.  I made sure to get every one's laundry to their respective rooms at the start and it was going well, everyone agreed to do it.  I was so happy when my ten year old brought the first basket down "where do you want this mom?"  "in front of the washer." was my reply.  And there it sat, as I got busy with taking the older two to school then getting the younger two ready for naps, then lunch then fun time, then time to get the big ones.  This happened for a few days and my mind never turned back to that basket.  I had seen it the next day with clothes on top that weren't hers so naturally I thought my husband did what he was notorious for and shoved clean clothes in that were destined for my bed or sofa, well I was right, unfortunately what I didn't know at the time was that instead of doing our oldest daughters laundry that was in the basket he had picked up a mix of clothes off the floor and because he needed a basket when they were done he dumped hers on the floor.   And then my problems all came flooding back.  "Why can't you ever listen?  I just want one thing and you can't even do that.  I just don't understand why you won't try to make things easier for me!"  And that is how I feel.  It is an easy system if it's used properly.  It would take all the hassle out of sorting laundry at all and that's just what we need.  With a large family and little time we need to do things to make life easier for us.

  Today I realized, as I was putting my markers into these little pouches I had purchased for $.24 at the SuperStore, I am always telling my children "be the change you want to see in the world"  I live by that and I want them to as well.  But then it hit me, like a tonne of bricks.  I was dictating everything that I wanted them to do, telling them all exactly how to do things and what to do because I am a stay at home mom and don't have time to do "everything" well, I do.  Or at least I would.  If I can get out of the funk that I've been living in because everyone isn't doing exactly what I want when I want it then I will be able to do it.  I will have plenty of time.  How can I expect them to if I can't?  I need to make time.

  It's my fault that I feel the way I do and even more my fault that I have let things get this bad.  When I met my husband I wanted my girls to accept him into the family because I loved him and there was never anything, aside from the two of them, that I was ever so certain was supposed to be in my life.  I sort of stepped down a little bit from being the worlds best mommy and was just a great mommy for awhile, I wanted him to step in and take on some of the responsibility, and what a mistake that was.  Not because he's a bad dad, he is an amazing daddy.  But shortly after that I started to felt regret, I like to be in control of everything and it wasn't long before they were calling him daddy and going to him instead of me for things that up until he came to our lives it was always me.  I guess, it was my fault, I have no one to blame but myself.  But I want my life back.  I want the clean house the one you could eat of the floor in.  The house that of all your friends you like to go to the most because it's always in pristine shape, but you don't like to go to because "no one really lives like that, it's too clean"  Yep, that's what I want and I will get it.

    When I was pregnant with my almost 11 year old daughter my grandmother gave me a plaque and it reads "Rockabye Baby ~ Cleaning and scrubbing can wait til tomorrow For babies grow up, we've learned to our sorrow....So quiet down cobwebs, Dust go to sleep, I'm rocking my baby And babies don't keep.  Wendy Lyn"  I loved it when I got that so many years ago and it has been something I have lived by because I believed it was totally true, I have always had a messy house due to factors including stress, and sorrow, I was not happy for the first 7 years on my own and only a few months did I feel free and relieved after I left my horrible ex was my house clean, and then I felt lonely, I had many friends but none knew how I truly felt.  Everyday was "laundry day", if you ask my husband he will tell you that meant that although the rest of my little apartment was clean my room had a real "Monica closet" it was always clothes too so that part wasn't bad.  My house was very clean until he came along and then I fell back into that "well there are two of us why must I do all the work?" state, that I have come to realize today that I can't have it both ways.  I want him to help but he's not doing it right, fast enough, well enough, So, time to take matters into my own hands and BE the change in my house that I want in my house.  I love my husband he is a great man he works 50 hours a week to keep us happy and fed and with clothes on our backs and a roof over our heads.  I love my children, they bring me complete joy in my life and I love my life, all aspects of it and if I didn't no one could change it except for me.

My revelation was that I need to be the change, I can't sit around complaining about what I want everyone else to do, I have to do it myself.  I have started my journey, I have read and listened to some books, started putting them into action and I will continue, I want this to change and I have to make it change.  I know my husband will assist in my journey, he will do anything to make me happy, but I don't want to feel like I "need" him to help in order to do it.  When I was on my own I did it on my own and even though he is here now, if I still do all this stuff on my own, it doesn't mean I love him less, or he loves me less, it means that I have realized that I need to do my share and some of his because he isn't always home and my house can't fall apart every time he walks out that door.  If you stay tuned in the days, weeks, months to come you will read how these changes are taking affect and what is going on.  I will come back tomorrow and start from the beginning of my "change for a happier house"  and you'll hear all about how I finally got my own personal space, my office!