A good reminder

from Pleasant View Schoolhouse, one of the "Mommy blogs" in my Google Reader:


Advice for young moms? Honey, it's different for you. Don't expect to be able to do everything during these days. These days are the most challenging parenting you'll do. Keep up with the laundry, feed your family fresh vegetables, sweep the floor when you have to, get some fresh air, and try, try, try to do a little something creative every day. You'll feel so much better.


I really needed to hear this. Most days I feel like this whole homeschooling mom thing is a superhuman task, and I often go to bed discouraged, mulling over all the things I didn't do on a given day. I know it will get easier, and soon, but that's small comfort when I look around and see all the dust and clutter building up, and feel like a failure of a homemaker -- or when I have to forgo playing with the littles because the laundry is starting to back up or I have to plan lessons or make necessary phone calls I've been putting off for weeks. There is nothing harder or more personally demanding than being a mother of small children, a homemaker, and a homeschooler all in one. I'm still trying to figure out how to manage my time so that I fulfill all my duties reasonably well (I'm so beyond expecting perfection) and yet have occasional opportunities to be creative and thereby refresh my spirit. It's hard when I live in the completely unreasonable terror of CPS knocking on the door and determining that I am unfit to keep these children because they have jam on their faces, or the floor hasn't been vacuumed yet this week, or there are dirty finger smudges all over the walls. Yes, unreasonable, I know. To each his own nightmare. I've never handled criticism well, so living in fear of being judged by an authority with disastrous consequences is just one of the many subconscious manifestations of that ever-present maternal guilt. (We all know we could be doing better, right?)

I think I need to get out of the house more.