Unindustrious Housewife

That should be the new title for my blog. That is exactly the way I feel lately.

What defines a houswife? Homemaker? Are the two the same thing? I am struggling with not just general housework but 'homemaking'. What does it mean to me to be a homemaker? I think sometimes I am more quaified as the sex pot trophy wife, then the actual homemaker part.

But with the craziness of the house lately even the sex is touch and go since my kids will never go to sleep before midnight. Not that they aren't in bed, they just can't seem to fall asleep.

I know we all have our ridiculously-high-always-impossible-to-attain- standards of how we should be as mothers and wives. I am actually going to admit this outloud and put it into print. I suck as a housewife. Yeah, yeah, I am decent at the job most days. But it's true, as of lately, most definitely I could get fired. Especially if I judged myself according to my own ridiculously-high-always-impossible-to-attain standards.

I absolutely love being a mom. Yet quite often I could just go into my room and hide from them. Even my own friends and relatives admit they don't know how I do it. Some of my kids are like having 2 or 3 children in one. Constant action, constant noise, constant dramas, constant reminders.

I love being a wife. I have a great husband. Yet I wouldn't say I "take" care of him. I don't get up when he's getting ready for work to make him breakfast. I don't make his lunches. I do the laundry but I don't put away his clothes. I do my share of cooking and cleaning but I wouldn't say I'm a homemaker. I can't say if I am or not unless I figure out what it really means to be a "homemaker". I don't sew. I don't do crafts. I don't decorate. If cleaning the house without the house looking cleaned and cooking 3 meals out of 7 makes me a homemaker, then maybe I am.

Most of the time I'd say I have great kids. Yet sometimes I feel so fed up, so frustrated and so annoyed in my own house. I finally watched Desparate Housewives yesterday. I thought I'd see what all the buzz was about. I don't relate to any of the characters as a whole. They are rich, skinny and manage to put on nice clothes on a day to day basis. But I did watch an Oprah show, where they had some real life desparate housewives on. I could relate to the concept, not all of the time but enough. Does that make me a bad mother? A bad christian mother?

I have no urges to kill myself, or anyone else. I don't feel I am on the brink of going insane. Yet I've had my crazy woman moments. Mostly I think because I have felt either a bit isolated or trapped. We currently have one car and logistics have prevented me from being the one to drive it most days. I used to have the car by getting up at 6am to drop the husband off at the bus stop. Then I'd come back and get the oldest up for school. I'd drive him at 7:30 am, while getting his sisters and brother ready for school. I'd then come back to get the younest (5) to drop him off by 8am. Then I'd have to make sure Mooch (11) got off to the bus by 8:05a somehow while I'm still dropping off lil' J. Finally I get the last child off by 8:30am. None of that is equivalant to the difficulty of brain surgery, and probably nothing like the schedules of working moms who try to juggle commutes, daycare drop offs, and all day meetings. It's incredibly crazy some days though. I'm not sure I should sit down and breathe for fear something will go wrong.

My husband has ADHD, J has ADHD and depression, Snoo has ADHD with Tourette Syndrome, and Mooch is just perpectually unprepared, sleepy, and grouchy. Lil; J is getting better but normally I am dragging his fanny out of bed and doing everything for him. I'm getting him dressed while he's eating, packing his bag, and so forth. He takes the bus now which picks him up be 7:35am. J is at a new school which starts at 7:10am. Yes, that is right. I have four kids at four different schools, all starting and ending at four different times.

Then there is the homework. Homework should be illegal. I hate homework and I am not even in school. Well, technically I'm not, but with the amount of homework these kids have, and the so-called math curriculum they have now, I might as well be. I feel like I am in school again, only they are doing Martian math. Thank God I have the advantage of the internet to help them look things up. There are library books to get, poster board to buy, finger paint to make, diaramas to make, more checks to write, more papers to sign, more papers to edit, more progress reports to check, and so on, and so forth. These kids have so much homework, they literally have no time for extra curricullar activities. All the kids have AWANA, the girls have Girl Scouts, and that's it. They even have homework on weekends. I'm getting to loathe all of it, and I feel like the school is trying to move in on my time. I should feel like plugging in when the kids come home and have family time but I just want to grab the keys and drive around for hours until they fall asleep and I get to do it all again the next morning. Each of these kids has had a backpack break due to carry so much stuff in them day after day.

I think after all the stress and crazy, crazy stuff that happens around here I am just totally unmotivated to go about my "duties". Part of my problem is that I'm a perfectionist. I know what you're thinking. There's this great program called flylady....

Yeah, I have heard of flylady. She flooded my inbox with so many emails, I spent hours a week deleting them all. The bitch. I did stick to some of the routines so it wasn't a total loss.

I feel like I'm always running but never getting anywhere. It's the same repetition day after day that I never get to the core of what needs to be done to make the house run the way I want it to. Like a birthday cake with trick candles, I keep putting out the "hotspots" and they just come on back all on their own. Or so it seems since nobody in this house can say anything other then, "I don't know". If the universe can play tricks with inanimate objects, then I have a really good alibi for all the clutter. I throw things out and I see them back AGAIN. Cheese and rice!

I've gotten rid of so much stuff and I'm still getting rid things. I think my house is too small for so many people yet I know others live in homes smaller then my own and they make it work. I can't stand to see things out of place. Or to live with disorder yet this house seems to be perpectually in a state of disarray. I know I sound a tad whiny. I just want things to stay the way I want them to stay and they don't. The odd thing is, I'm fairly relaxed about it all. I don't want to turn into a cold and anal robot mom.

I'm not a messy person yet you'd never tell from the look of my house. I'm so not OK with the way this house looks most days. Yet, no matter how much I clean or how often I tell someone to look after their things it doesn't seem to improve. This makes makes be rather grumpy I shall say. I DON'T want to be that bitchy, grumpy "homemaker". I do declare, I need a live in maid. Yeah, I admit, I stink at this and I should be granted a homemakers assistant. Is there such a thing?