Lowering My Expectations...

I have been on a mission, ever since Kindergarten loomed bright on the horizon, to somehow morph into Supermom. Yes, I knew it wouldn't really happen either, but it doesn't stop me from trying. I am attempting to do regular meal planning, which is quite a job. After years of just feeding my kids what they would eat, I have finally decided to just make one meal that the whole family can eat -- emphasis on the can. Will is another story entirely. Unfortunately, it hasn't met with much enthusiasm from anyone. But, like the dog Murphy from the 90's sitcom Mad About You, I apparently like repeatedly running into walls for no good reason. Most nights the kids won't eat much of dinner.  A few bites here and there is about all the oldest will manage. The youngest? Not even that. Then again, I'm not sure how Olivia eats enough to sustain an ant, never mind an active toddler, but I digress. At this point, the effort it takes to plan meals and a grocery list, do a big weekly shop, fix the food, store the leftovers, then throw them away because no one ate them the first time, so don't even think of having "leftover" night (which, isn't that supposed to be one of the rewards of doing this anyway?), isn't really providing much in the way of reward. The biggest plus is that I only have to fix one meal per night. That's a good thing.

I'm also trying to keep an orderly, uncluttered, clean house. Up until this point, I have always been fortunate to have someone come in every other week to clean, so all I had to do was some minor weekly maintenance stuff (which honestly, I often slacked on until playdate time). Now, one has to question the intelligence of a woman who decides, by her own free will, to give up said cleaning service when I am in the largest home I've ever been in. Seriously? What was I thinking! Well, I'm thinking for one that even as shoddy a housekeeper as I can be at times, I still do a better job than the cleaning service. Isn't that awful? But I guess there's a sense of pride when it's your own house, and there are those things that you notice when you walk by them a thousand times a day, no matter how hard you try to ignore them.

So, just as I am doing with the meals, I am attempting to get on some sort of a cleaning schedule. In my previous housecleaning adventures, I have always tried to clean the whole house in one shot. I mean, housecleaning is not something to be achieved in drips and drams, is it? Well, I've found that to be exactly the case. I just can't do this whole house in one sitting, even if I wanted to. So, I accept that I have to clean in 20 - 30 minute chunks. Otherwise, it never gets done. Besides, with kids, there's nothing worse than spending 6 hours cleaning only to have one kid (or husband) walk through the house, leaving a wake of dirt and destruction in her wake.

All of this rambling is to say that I'm having to let go of my perfectionism. So what if the kids don't eat the meals I spend time and effort to put in front of them? That's what chewable vitamins are for. Besides, isn't it really just for bragging rights with other moms? It's not much fun to have to 'fess up to feeding my kids fish sticks and noodles for 5 out of 7 dinners. And, so what if my house is never clean all at once? It's clean and tidy most of the time, and I'm much lessed stressed by lowering the expectations. Okay, so you might not want to eat off my floors and I wouldn't look too closely at the cobwebs in the corners, but seriously, it's good enough. And, at the end of the day, I'm having to embrace the good, no matter how much I wish for great.