Pink Roses II: Life, with children...

Two days ago, I made a post about the difference a vase of flowers made in my housekeeping. The beautiful pink roses are still standing next to me and making me smile. However, I vowed several times that in this blog I would be honest about the realities of homemaking and motherhood.
Quite often in the past I've visited wonderful homemaking blogs and come out feeling inspired but also hopelessly inadequate and doomed to failure, because I never would be able to get it all together and do all these wonderful projects like those women did. Their children never seemed to throw tantrums, their house never seemed a mess, and there always was a crockpot with something delicious on, so they never... ever... stood frazzled before the freezer and decided that they could get away with pizza this evening. And if they did, it would be homemade, wholesome, whole wheat pizza dough of course, with toppings layed out in a shape that portrayed the liturgical season or their current bible reading or homeschool project.

In the few years that I have been a wife and mother I have learned that life simply does not work that way. These women DO all these wonderful projects and I commend them for it, but often they are of the opinion that when things go wrong... you do not announce it to the world. I can respect that opinion, especially in this tell all generations where people seem to find it necessary to share every little detail about their lives, even the ones we REALLY did not want to know.
For some of us first generation homemakers however, this works discouraging. We have no other rolemodels to look at for full time homemakers than either old television shows (which we at least KNOW to be unrealistic) and the women we get to know through the internet who go before us.

So I made the commitment that while I want to share my inspirations and triumphs and joys, I will also share the ah... less pretty side.
On sunday... my house looked beautiful, the roses beamed at me in approval and I felt satisfied with the world. Three days, two doctors appointments, a husband with a busy time at work and a son with a cold later... these are the changes:

- Miscelanious objects have managed to congregate on my desk. I do not know how or why, because I certainly did not invite me, but from where I sit right here I can see a homeschooling book, a stick of deodorant, two childrens books, an empty box of tissues, a box of dried prunes, a necklace, a box of crayons that should be in the desk not on it, a mug, a can with an energy drink, a pretty tea cup, a childrens cup and a half worked scribbled drawing that my son made while talking with his grandmother on skype, as well as some junk mail. It's a big desk.

- The crystal bowl with the pretty red apples had to be removed because my son kept helping himself. That would not be so bad, after all, fruit is good for you, if he would actually eat one apple, and then go to the next one. Instead he selected one, bit in it. Took it along... left it somewhere and when whim stroke stretched his hand out for the next one. We went through three apples before I caught on and intervened. Two of the apples are now on Joseph's own plastic table to hopefully be finished off by tonight.

- There is one basket of duplo's upended on the carpet, and Joseph's shoes are laying next to them where I put them after I took them off to put him down for his nap. For some reason, my husband's tie is also laying on the carpet.

- The pretty white table cloth is unfortunately no longer pretty and white. Two days ago my son wanted to play with the coin box and help pick up the coins from the table and put them back in the jar. We 'counted' money for literally an hour and a half. Dirty coins leave residue on a white table cloth.

- To finish off the table cloth, came our daily practice of independance and self reliance: the idea that we should allow a child to do things for itsself so that he can become more independant and a greater help to mommy and daddy and he learns to do an effort. It's a great thing to stimulate at the age of two and a half where children actually LOVE to do things by themselves. It's also a sticky thing to stimulate, literally. Because while Joseph is learning how to spread cream cheese or choco spread on his own crackers or bread, the once white table cloth suffers in the two seconds there are between mommy realizing the impending disaster and the moment where she can hand a whipe to her son after having hauled her pregnant body from the chair in an unseemly display of haste, rushed off to the kitchen, found the whipe and offered it while exclaiming "NO Joseph, you're being a good boy... keep your hands up... no... keep it... oh..."



Now after I have finished up this post, I WILL actually put that tablecloth in the washing machine... I will clean up the clutter on my desk and it will probably only take ten minutes. But some days, I am too tired and by now just need a nap. Or some soothing time to knit, and some days it grows from this little bit of disorder to more extravagant proportions. Then I need a bouquet of pretty pink roses or another reminder that even in this season, even with limited time, I can create some order and pretty - ness amidst the choco smears. At least for a few hours.