There will always be lots to do....

Here is an interesting tidbit I found on a fellow bloggers site www.mamablogga.com: according to a survey of 7000 moms by AOL’s Platform-A and OMD, the average mom fits the equivalent of 27 hours of activities into a 16-hour day. Only 1.4 of those hours are “personal time,” of course.

The one thing I question about this study: what mom do you know that gets eight hours of sleep?!

Monday or Tuesday’s Oprah talked about overwhelmed mothers (which I am still in the middle of because sometimes my kids do not allow me 1 hour of quiet time to watch a show that is not on the Disney channel). She had an expert on the show telling mothers basically they need to stop focusing on and devoting all their time to being their ideal of a perfect mother. Instead we all should start putting some of that focus on us, our state of mind and our happiness.

I think he is pretty much right. Who are we as mothers and wives if our state of mind is out of whack and we are not happy?
Certainly not good ones.

This expert goes on to say In today’s society we are all pushed to handle multiple tasks at once.
He says that multitasking does not exist, we move from one task to another without ever giving our whole selves to each task.

Obviously he is not a mother.

As much as I make a joke about it—it is true. Very rarely do we do 3 things at once. We may do them all in the same few minutes but we do not clean the kitchen, fold the laundry and nurse the baby all at the same time. We move from one task to the next, only worrying about the next task and the one after that. In doing this we do not do these things as well as we could.

We as mothers need to ask for help. We need to ask our husbands, our friends and our family. If I start to get overwhelmed I need to ask for help. If not it could spiral out of control. Things will only get worse if I do not catch myself and step back and take a look. If I am not doing well I need to realize that and not be ashamed of it.

I know these things. However it is not as easy as it sounds. It is hard to admit that you cannot handle all the things you are expected to do. It is hard to admit that you cannot do everything and still feel good about yourself. It is hard not to be so critical of yourself.

There will always be a lot to do. Sometimes I just have to remind myself to slow down and enjoy life. Life being my kids, my husband, other family members and my friends.

The dishes will eventually get done, the laundry will too. No one care if there are toys strewn about. No one cares if my kids did not get a bath last night because I decided to take the time to spend with them instead (as long as they do not stink). No one cares if every hair on every kid is in the exact place, or even mine for that matter. No one cares if the floors are clean, the beds are made and the trash is taken out. It is time to slow down.

There will always be lots to do, so enjoy life now, as it happens.