Confessions

I thought I would confess a few things....

First of all, I HATE laundry.  I don't hate many things in life but i do despise laundry.  It is never ending.  Just when i get caught up, it seems to start all over again.  When the laundry piles up, I almost feel overwhelmed as I just can't get ahead.  My goal each day is to do one load of laundry and even if I am having a good week and keep to my one load a day, I still can fall behind.  If I miss a day or two then I am really behind.  It is just never ending.  On any given day, I probably have at least three or four loads of laundry to do.  Does anyone have any tips on how to keep the laundry under control?  Or make it more enjoyable?  If you do, please share as I sure struggle with this. 

My second confession is that I am a person who needs a lot of sleep.  I do my best when I can get at least 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  If I can get 10 hours then I am in heaven.  If I have a chance to sleep, I will always take it.  I sometimes wish that I was more high-energy and that I could get by with 5 or 6 hourse of sleep but that is just not me.  I can do a day or two of little sleep but it will always catch up with me.  When I don't get enough sleep, the world looks a little bleaker, my patience can be pretty thin, and I just can't find joy in the things that normally I do feel joy in.  I have to admit, that one reason of why I think we won't have any more kids is that I just don't want to do the sleepless nights again.  When my babies were infants, I would go to bed at 8 and Matt would stay up until midnight (which is pretty normal for him) to do the last feed.  Then I would be up usually only once, maybe twice in the night.  That was the only way I survived.  Now, my kids are in bed at 8 and I'm usually in bed by 10 and we get up around 7.  Lucas still occasionally gets up in the night for some milk and occasionally Alyssa will need my comfort from a nightmare, but overall we usually all get a good night's sleep.  And I am definately better for this.

Thirdly, my house is not as clean as I would like it to be.  I feel like our house is really cluttered right now, with toys and kids stuff etc.  I long for everything to have a place to be put away and to not feel so cluttered.  But, that being said, I love my kids and all the stuff that goes along with them.  I try to keep up on my housework but I just find that alot of the time I would rather be spending time with my kids.  Reading a book with Lucas (just this week he started sitting still for an entire book and will bring me book after book to read), coloring with Alyssa (I'm kind of anal about coloring and have my own set of felts that I like to use), jumping in puddles outside, building towers with blocks with Lucas (he loves to build them and then knock them over), or playing hide and seek with both of them.  We have a lot of fun together and I know that they will only be this little for a short time so I tend to let my housework slide a little.  Thankfully, Matt is very understanding and he loves how much time i spend with the kids so he doesn't comlain in the least that the house hasn't been vacuumed this week or that there are smudges on the windows.  So if you come over and notice that the floor is a little sticky or that the mirrors haven't been cleaned, please excuse the mess and know that I have been spending a little more time with my littles that week.  I know that there will be a time in the future when I will have tons of time to clean my house but for now my time is better spent with Alyssa and Lucas.

I pick my battles with my kids.  So one battle that I have chosen not to fight right now is fighting with Alyssa on what she wants to wear.  As long as its warm enough and she is fully clothed, I don't fight with her.  She loves her independance and right now she loves picking out her clothes.  So if you notice that she is not matching, please don't think of me as a bad mom, but rather know that I didn't want to crush her spirit by telling her that she didn't match and needs to change. Another battle I choose not to fight is the battle of eating.  I figure they will eat when they are hungry and as long as I offer healthy choices than I can't make them eat.  Just recently Lucas has started being a little more picky and not eating as much as he once did.  I started to get a little stressed about this but then remembered Alyssa doing this exact thing.  We went through a few years of her not eating as much as I would have liked but in the last few months she has started to change her eating habits and is now eating a lot more than she used to.  She is also trying more and more foods and is really becoming an okay eater.  Mealtime at our house is an enjoyable time.  I would rather us just be at the table together, talking and laughing, rather than fighting about eating. 

I long to be a nurse.  I have always loved everything medical.  I never thought that I would be able to have the strength to deal with some of the unpleasent sights and sounds that nurses deal with so I always put the thought of being a nurse out of my mind.  But as I have gotten older and dealt with some health issues in our family, I have realized that I can do it with God's strength.  I started taking some online courses with the hopes of finishing my practical nurse diploma by the time Lucas entered school.  I really enjoyed taking those courses and learning more and more things.  But at this time I have taken a break from school as our future is a little uncertain of where we will be in the next few years. But I still do long to go back to school and to become a nurse.  In the next few years I will probably enroll in a full time program and will still try to get certification before Lucas is in school or maybe shortly after.  I can't wait. 

So those are my confessions...I'm sure I will be back with more in the future.