I'm learning about the important things......

I feel this is something that needs to be written and recorded........  And I don't know if Chad would agree or even say that he's noticed a real difference, but he doesn't matter because I still think he needs to agree to letting me have someone come clean our house once a month...... But, I have finally come to terms with the fact that our house, our home, the same home that Chad and I pay for each month, the same home that has OUR names on the deed, has become nothing more than an oversized playhouse for my 3 kids.  Somewhere under all the cars, trucks, trains, blocks, baby gear, crayons, and dirty socks and underwear that I find in random places, lies expensive furniture, matching decor, beautiful keepsakes and pictures, and surfaces that I have not seen in quite some time.  Living in a house with 3 children, two of whom are BOYS----in every aspect----is chaos.  Absolute chaos.  Nothing productive ever gets accomplished.  I can scrub the toilets and within 3 minutes someone announces they have to go poop.  I can scrub the tubs and later in the same afternoon, I have 2 sandy, dirty, muddy boys coming in from playing in the sandbox and running through the mud under their swing set.  The beautiful wood floors I waited patiently for for years until we had the money to put them in are not as practical as I thought they would be.  They stay smudged and dirty 90% of the time.  My living room right this very second is no longer covered with the beautiful, expensive, wool rug I payed GOOD money for a few months ago.  It is currently housing a play mat for Mary Grace and play mat for the boys that they like to  play with their toy cars on.  There is also a huge train table in the living room.  We have four bedrooms, but the only thing my kids use them for is to sleep in.  The rest of the house is fair game to whoever can lay claim to an area first.  Even the couch no longer belongs to us.  The dog seems to have taken over that.  Right now there is also a stack of boxes in the middle of our hallway full of clothes to take to the attic.  They have been there for about 5 or 6 weeks.  For some reason they haven't bothered Chad enough to take the time to place them in the attic.  For some reason, I have become blind to them myself.  Sort of.  They bother me.  But, whatever.  It's just another day in the Miller house.  I have learned not to be so consumed with having a clean house 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Let's face it, I will NEVER be June Cleaver.  Not even CLOSE.  She was once someone I idolized in a 50's sitcom, fictional character sort of way.  Now I just consider her my nemesis.  Although I wish she was more of my altar ego. Someone I could become most days.  But I'm just way too tired to even think about keeping my house in order for a couple of hours a day.  Much less every minute of every day.  I work outside of my home because I have to.  But even if I didn't have to, I would NEED to.  Sometimes I need to mentally escape the mess and the toys, and Dora the Explorer, and baby talk.

 I said not too long ago that my favorite part of the day is my children's bedtime.  While that is true in one aspect (because that is my ONLY quiet time of the day), it is also true in another aspect:  After we drink our milk, brush our teeth, and take baths (not necessarily in that order), our whole family piles on our bed and we have a bedtime story (this is a new routine brought to us courtesy of Ethan, who LOVES to read), devotion time and prayer time.  It's usually still chaos, with at least one of the kids still trying to wind down from the day.  But it is the best time of the day.  It is time that I have LEARNED to cherish.  And learning to cherish and treasure the simpler things have not come easy.  It is in my nature to worry about my house being a wreck and the laundry piling up and the dirty dishes in the sink.  But I am doing better.  Much better.  I have found that I am so tired at night (cure for insomnia: have three kids!) that I can still sleep with dirty dishes in the sink and a pile of unfolded laundry (or 2 or 3) in laundry baskets.  (And along with all my housekeeping imperfections, I am not ashamed to admit that I have a mom who is not only a lifesaver by being my children's caretaker during the week, she is also my laundry fairy!!!!!)  But, I have learned that when I wake up in the mornings, those dishes will still be there, and so will the laundry.  But my kids will be grown in a blink, and the same smiles that I wake up to today, will be grown and gone tomorrow.  So, just for the record:  I am learning to adjust to the mess and the chaos that has consumed my house.  There are socks thrown around in random places, toy cars that I stump my toes on DAILY, a pile of laundry that needs to be folded, and smudged floors, but I'm okay with it.  My children are happy.  They don't care that the laundry won't do itself, or that floors are dirty with their footprints.  Those aren't the things they will remember 20 years from now.  So for now, I'm doing okay.  I'm taking this mess one day at a time and learning that the more important things in life are just that:  The important things in life.

But just for the record:  CHAD IF YOU ARE READING THIS, WHICH I KNOW YOU ARE, YOU STILL NEED TO LET ME HAVE SOME HELP ONCE A MONTH.  REMEMBER WHEN SOMEONE CAME A FEW WEEKS AGO AND CLEANED AND I WAS SOOOOOOO HAPPY??????  SO IT IS TRUE THAT MONEY CAN BUY HAPPINESS.  MONEY THAT HIRES SOMEONE TO CLEAN OUR HOUSE.