You Cannot Postpone a Relationship with Your Spouse until the Laundry is Done

I'm too tired for you - I have seven loads of laundry to fold, three more to wash, a dishwasher to unload and a sink of dirty dishes to put away.  I still have to make the bed from this morning so that we can go to bed tonight, in a bed that's made rather than one with rumpled covers.  There are shoes all over the floor, and towels from tonight's bath that need to be hung up, and the dinner table is still covered with dirty dishes, unwanted food and sticky spills that need to be wiped up.  

I've been up since five, trying to get my exercise in since that's the only half hour of the day when children are not permeating my life.  I still haven't showered, I have emails to return and - oh - that business I've been trying to get going since 2003?  Well, I'd like to do some work on it. 

 I have an article to write for publication which I'm not getting paid for and who knows how many people actually read it and enjoy it aside from my mom; I have a few friends I'd like to call who are going through hard times, and there are several light bulbs in the house that need replacing.  Normally, I wouldn't care about the light bulbs, but one of them is the light bulb in the yellow bathroom and our oldest son is afraid to pee with half the light lit up which means he won't get out of bed and he'll end up wetting his bed or - even worse - he'll come into our room and spend the rest of the night kicking me in the back and punching you in the stomach as he thrashes about between us.  

I spent my daylight hours dropping off, getting back in the car, dropping another off, getting back in the car, running errands, coming home and unloading the groceries, putting the groceries away as Ellie dumped cereal boxes onto the floor and made calls to foreign places with my cell phone, loading Ellie back in the car to pick up the boys, getting them back in the car to pick up the other boy, getting them back in the car to bring them home so Ellie could nap, listening to Ellie scream for an hour before she fell asleep because I missed the window of perfect nap time b/c we were in the car, finding something so the boys can entertain themselves for the next couple of hours so I can have a moment to clean the breakfast dishes, put away the laundry and make a few phone calls including wellness visits that are months late, canceling the camp that I impulsively signed the boys up for, and paying my iphone bill so I don't receive a late charge.  

Instead, I spend the next two hours putting out fires between Isaac and Aaron and Aaron and Ilan, trying to contain them and their tornados to the playroom so I can close the doors and deny there is a mess to be cleaned later if I need to.  Two hours go by rather quickly and soon we enter the 'afternoon hours before dinner' that tend to be the most difficult hours of the day.  Isaac is exhausted and it's too late for a nap - not that he'd take one.  I bounce between his whining, the boys screaming about Ellie taking the toys they are playing with, someone getting hurt during roughhouse play, Isaac peeing in his pants because he won't go to the potty at home without a huge fight, Ellie crying "pee pee" once every fifteen minutes, all children wandering in and out of the kitchen scrounging for food that will ruin their appetite at dinner causing them to be hungry the moment they lay their heads on their pillows, turning night time bed time rituals into a disastrous experience of whining, demanding food and postponing sleep.  Which means I begin my night time cleaning later than usual and just pray to tumble into bed before 11, so i can wake up at 5 to begin my day again.  

But, first, we have dinner and baths.  And the complete mess of - isaac is ready for bed before ellie but there's no way to get him there before putting her down and by the time she goes down, he wants to wait for aaron and ilan and even if i get isaac into his bed prior to 8pm, he wants me to lay with him, to get him three cups of water and comes out of bed several times to check on the rest of the family.  When he finally goes down, Aaron and Ilan follow suit soon after, and Ilan comes out within five minutes to go to the bathroom and get a drink of water which leads to peeing in his bed when we forget to wake him to pee before we go to bed, and sometimes even when we do.... which means he'll be sleeping in our room while I air out the mattress, douse it with vinegar and spend 45 minutes online looking for the ultimate cleaning solution for pee on a bed mattress.

So, now we're back to the loads of laundry, the dishes to unload and the clothes on the floor.  There's the bathtub to rinse out and the shoes to line up and lunches to prepare for tomorrow.  I decide that wiping down the kitchen table is not worth the time since we'll be up in six hours using it again and creating more mess.  I peek in on my forum and others at BellaOnline and get caught up in conversations I find useless and meaningless - though I do have my two cents to add.  It's 10pm.

And I need to wind down so that I can unwind. 

I know it's not fair to postpone our relationship in order to get the laundry done, but I'm too tired to do much else and - at least I'm getting something done while watching CSI.  I know I should let the laundry lie and the dishes remain dirty, that I shouldn't watch the minute hand of the clock go 'round and count the hours of potential sleep that are remaining, but I can't help it.  

You know what they say about living in the present moment?  Well, how do you leave the present moment to make a moment of the present?