Tag: housecleaning

One of those days, One of those weeks…

Every once in a while I have a surreal moment when I step back and look at my life and I think,

 

WHAT THE CRAP AM I DOING??

 

What on earth made you think you could handle having 10 kids? And now 2 foster kids too??? What made you think you could keep a house this size running smoothly? How on earth did you think you were going to keep up with this much laundry?? And why did you take on this many pets???? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!!????

 

And then I go look for some chocolate and let the kids watch tv and bury my head in a book. Cause that kind of reality is sometimes just too much and I have to check out for a while. 

 

 Actually, I’ve kind of been hiding out from reality all week. One of those, Hide My Head in the Sand, and then maybe, when I finally come up for air, my reality will have somehow magically changed, kind of weeks. 

 

Like maybe there will be a housekeeper on my doorstep who says, “I have decided to devote the next several years to being your housekeeper. I will wash all the laundry, do all the dishes, keep all the floors clean, keep the refrigerator stocked, and don’t worry, someone else has volunteered to pay my salary.” 

 

And while we’re dreaming, there could also be another person at the door who says, “Hi! I’ve decided to be your summertime Children’s Activities Coach. I will come up with fun games that not only entertain, but also educate, and get kids fit and active, all at the same time! I will also prepare healthy, nutritious snacks that are only given at well-spaced out times that don’t interfere with meal times. And someone else is going to pay my salary!” 

 

Anyway. I haven’t heard any knocks at the door yet. Just little kids banging on the front door because it’s too heavy for them to open, and they’re supposed to use the side doors, but they don’t, and instead just bang on the front door, waiting for someone to magically appear and open it for them. 

 

I’m sure I will get an infusion of energy soon and get back in the game of life. Just going to hide out a little bit longer…

 

My Family Isn’t as Weird as Yours!

The other day I saw a link online to a sensationalized article about a family somewhere in Scotland who had ten boys and one girl. (The 11th child was the girl!). Since I now currently have eleven children in my home, I was curious, and clicked on the article. It says that she washes forty-nine loads of laundry a week. What! I mentally counted in my head. I only wash eight to ten loads a week. Unless we have to wash bedding. Then it could be maybe fifteen, tops. Except, my older kids do their own laundry, so I would need to add on about four more loads to that number. And I have a really big washing machine. And it probably holds about three loads worth of some small European type washing machine. So, if you add that all up, say, I do twelve loads, plus four loads, equals sixteen loads, times three, equals forty-eight loads of laundry. Hmm. 

 

The article also says she vacuums her house seven times a day. Well, now that’s just weird. Must be a clean freak. 🙂 Unless her house is all carpeted and it’s small. I could see vacuuming a lot if that were the case. I don’t vacuum seven times a day, but I probably clean my toilet that many times. Too many little boys in the house. 

 

They didn’t mention how many times she washes dishes. I use paper plates. (Not environmentally friendly, not sure what to do about that…)The other day I ran out of paper plates and wasn’t going to be able to make it to the store for a bit. So, we used the regular plates. I washed 3 large dishwasher loads a day, as compared to one large dishwasher load a day, plus handwashing all the oversized pots and pans that don’t fit. Lots of fun. 

 

They also mentioned that she went grocery shopping twice a week!! I scoffed for a minute, then thought about it. Well, yes, I do go grocery shopping twice a week, but that’s not two GIANT shopping trips. I usually do a really big grocery shopping, then halfway through the week, I go and stock up on fruit, milk, bread and whatever random thing I’ve run out of. Because when I buy an entire weeks’ worth of fruit, my kitchen tends to fill up with fruit flies. Plus, it helps keep things fresh if I go twice a week. But, my second shopping really isn’t THAT big. Maybe just two trips walking from the car to get everything in the house. 

 

The photos of the family in the article showed all the kids lined up in color-coordinated t-shirts. The mom is an exercise instructor and looks amazing despite having just given birth to her eleventh child. The children are all handsome and photogenic. Sigh. My children are beautiful, most of them are photogenic, but several of them have not mastered the art of the “real smile” and instead look sickly or constipated, because, for some reason, that’s what they think they’re supposed to do when someone points a camera at them. I have one child that has literally spent his entire life trying to mess up our family pictures. I won’t mention any names, but if you track down any family photos you’ll spot him. I think that color-coordinating is corny and refuse to participate in that particular form of child torture. Though, all my friends that do coordinate, do look very nice in their photos. 🙂  And, lastly, an exercise instructor I am not. Double sigh. 

 

In the end, I found it really funny to read this article that was trying to make having eleven kids sound like some kind of weird freak show. What? They even brought up the OctoMom. I especially found it funny that I spent the entire article comparing my family to theirs, trying to justify how my family was better. What was that all about? I went back and found another article, not so sensationalized, about the same family. They sounded like regular, interesting people. We’d probably get along pretty well if we ever met. When am I ever going to get over this comparison thing? It’s not a competition. 

 

I will keep reminding myself of this. 

 

I hate you…Merry Christmas!

So, I’ve decided every holiday season needs at least one blog to point out the underbelly of Season’s Greetings. Today is the day of the Heneise Family Christmas Party. If you didn’t get an invitation, consider yourself invited and come on over. I love this tradition. One of my girls asked me, rather annoyed because she is having to do a lot of cleaning today…Why do we always have a Christmas Party??? I said it’s because Christmas is about family, and since we don’t have a lot of family living close by, our friends are our family. And this is an opportunity to get together with them at least once during the Christmas Season. 

 

She harrumphed. 

 

If you can’t tell, attitudes haven’t been the best today. My kids love having a party, but they hate getting ready for a party. It involves cleaning, and deep cleaning, and decluttering, and picking up things that we usually ignore. Wiping down surfaces we usually leave for later. Then there is also the maintenance of the Said Cleaning. I JUST VACUUMED THAT COUCH!! GET OFF IT!!! 

 

The kids, already feeling put upon for having to clean, are taking it out on each other. I hate you! You’re stupid! I wish you weren’t here! And other horrible things that I don’t allow my children to say to each other, have been said today. I have had some rather uncomplimentary thoughts about some of my children as well, though at least I managed to keep it to myself. 

 

My husband told me yesterday that he was going to devote the whole day today to helping me get ready. I envisioned him washing some dishes and running a vacuum. This morning he announced he was going to clean the basement (???) and fix the two holes in my floors that have needed repairing for months. 

 

Ok.

 

Not exactly what I had in mind. 

 

But, the holes did need fixing, and apparently cleaning the basement was tied into fixing holes in the floor.

 

Ok. Give me a minute to readjust my expectations. 

 

Now, in a couple hours, people will start showing up and we’ll forget about cleaning the house and we’ll settle in to just having fun with friends. MERRY CHRISTMAS! PEACE ON EARTH! 

 

So, are we all raging hypocrites? Hateful one minute, sweet and nice the next? Or maybe being hypocritical is just part of human nature.  A human nature that we all need to be saved from. A human nature that was completely lost in it’s sinfulness and yet Jesus decided to give us value to the point that he was willing to come to earth and make the ultimate sacrifice so that we could be saved from this sinful human nature. 

Christmas…Emmanuel…God with us. 

 

I have believed in Jesus, decided to follow him. My sins are forgiven. But I still have this sinful human nature. I will spend my whole life learning how to be more like Jesus. Sometimes I’ll do really well. Like today! The meanest thing I said was, YOU GUYS STINK AT CLEANING! Which is mild compared to some of the verbiage that was being slung around. But then, there are days where I completely step out of grace and wallow in my sinful nature. 

 

So, really, I hate you…Merry Christmas… is completely appropriate for this time of year.  I hate you: I’m not the best person. I say and do bad things. Merry Christmas: that’s why Jesus came! We can devote an entire month to celebrate that we have a Savior now who wants to rescue us from ourselves. 

 

Fine, I Won’t Give Up

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I saw this meme on my friend’s FB today, and I was like, YES!! My thoughts exactly!! We’ve had a rough week. The Rotavirus and Adenovirus both came to visit. I have been nursing sick kids for seven days now and been sick for several of those days myself. We’ve been reduced to survival levels. Today, feeling a bit better myself, I determined it was time to catch up with some housework. We had managed to keep the downstairs livable, but the upstairs had completely fallen apart. I set the healthy children to work, thinking they would work on their chore list while I worked on mine. Right. In fact what happened was that I ended up supervising them in their chores, taking over where they completely failed at the job, and generally just stomping around in a bad mood, surrounded by kids who were in an equally bad mood. Lovely.

Of course, not choosing the moral high ground and instead letting myself completely vent my bad attitude did not make me feel better. It just made me feel guilty. What kind of mom am I anyway? What kind of Christian am I when I am my children’s only exposure to swear words? And then, feeling guilty lead to anger. It’s not my fault! I’m doing my best here and nobody appreciates it! I finally had the common sense to turn on the tv for the kids, go in my room, shut the door and take a nap. I’m still feeling sick and I was kidding myself thinking I had enough energy to tackle a big house-cleaning day.

Post-nap, my emotions have settled down. Time to get another perspective.

Another friend posted on her blog page The Chosen Broken this quote:

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“You have been chosen…” That sounds so Noble. Dignified. Worthy. Purposeful. I have been Chosen. Chosen to be the matriarch of my clan. Chosen to be partner to my husband. Chosen to serve the people in my sphere. It’s a calling.

”…you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have.” When you see the name J.R.R. Tolkien, you immediately think of epic adventures full of danger, excitement, great challenge. In this epic adventure called life I need everything I’ve got to keep pressing on, keep moving, tackle the next mountain, ford the next raging river. I think about all the gifts and talents that God has given me. Stubbornness. Who knew how valuable that characteristic could be? Kid, you might be stubborn, but I can out-stubborn you any day, you will do what I ask you to do if it takes us all day and night to make it happen. Responsibility. This is a heavy one, but it gets things done. I’m laying in bed sick, it’s suppertime, kids are hungry. I get out of bed and make supper. They’re my kids, my responsibility to make sure they get fed. Sense of humor. I couldn’t survive without this one. If you can’t laugh at yourself and your circumstances, seems like life would be rather miserable.

There’s a bible passage in Ephesians 6: 10-20 that talks about the armor of God. Not only does God equip us with natural gifts and talents that help us with our challenges, he also gives us supernatural armor to protect us. I need that today. The helmet of salvation. I need to remember that my sins are forgiven, my future entails eternity with Jesus. I need the belt of truth, God’s word is alive and well and powerful.

I hate this day. Ok, but the Bible says in Psalm 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” 

Life stinks. Ok, but the Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV) “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

You get the idea.

Step by step, I read through the armor of God, think about what it means, apply it to my situation.

I have been chosen. This life is a quest and right now we’re going through some rough waters. But I’ve also been equipped with everything I need to battle on through, and one day, I will be victorious. As the old hymn says,

What a day that will be,

When my Jesus I shall see,

And I look upon His face,

The One who saved me by His grace;

When He takes me by the hand,

And leads me through the Promised Land,

What a day, glorious day that will be.

 

Till then, we battle on, using what strength, heart, and wits that we have.