Clutter Confessions

I am going to step out on a limb and reveal something I wish I could just keep to myself. It hurts my pride to reveal a weakness and a specific voice in my head is telling me not to. You may know that voice, too. Everyone has one. Mine sounds a little something like this. Don’t tell anyone! Everyone will know how inept you are. What will they think? Greg also shares this opinion, but I am choosing to ignore them both, possibly against my better judgment. Here I go.

I suck at household management.

There. I said it.

Short of boozing your breakfast, it might be the most unforgivable of SAHM sins, and it’s mine. I own it.

Now before you get the wrong impression, please note that my house is NOT a pit of despair. It is a nice house, and decently clean, if a bit cluttered and in perpetual need of mopping. My problem is the organizational aspects of home management, like menu planning, scheduled cleaning, paperwork, etc. I recognize that I am perhaps over reacting, since we do not live in squalor and my house is usually straightened. But I am constantly feeling a couple of steps behind, and I want to change. I see other moms who seem to have this all together and I want in on the secret. I myself used to be one but I somehow lost the skills. I want back in the club.

Before my second pregnancy, I was on top of things. I cooked every evening and I cleaned every day. I was efficient and organized. I had a routine and I stuck to it. And then I got pregnant with baby number two, and all of those skills? I haven’t seen them since.

The strange thing about this is that I am typically a very organized person. I have always been obsessed with lists and I have at least one list prepared on any given day. When I worked, my office was usually neat. As a student, I was meticulous. I assumed that when I chose to stay home my organizational skills would merge with my new life, but alas, I find myself still struggling. I managed to make it with one baby, but this second child has me begging for mercy.

And yet I do have periods of supremely organized living in which my house is sparkling, my clutter is put away, my junk drawers are purged, my meals are planned, my paperwork is sorted. The house will be a veritable oasis, a perfect model of organization.

And then the inevitable occurs.

We begin a super busy weekend. The kind where we are rushing breakfasts and bath times, stuffing diaper bags, searching for cell phones, ironing clothes, loading strollers, changing diapers; just trying to make it out the door with two unwilling babies and an arsenal of baby paraphernalia. The kind where we leave early (though ten minutes past the time we should have left) and get home late, too tired to pick up the chaos of the morning. Too exhausted to properly unload the inevitable baby baggage we brought back home with us.

The next day, we do it all over again.

Two or three consecutive days of this will do me in every time. The clutter builds, and so does my stress level. I am soon overwhelmed and overtired. And these babies, they are so ridiculously selfish! My children actually believe themselves entitled to regular meals, baths, naps, and supervised playtime. Believe it or not, they even forbid that I forsake them to take care of my household duties the way I would like to, which is to dive in and tackle it all. This business of cleaning a little at a time as the day goes on is just against my nature. I want to do it all at once, and do it thoroughly. It is the perfectionist in me.

This is the worst part. Sometimes I actually feel that I have to choose between the two. Clean babies or clean house? There are some days that I get my house clean at the expense of my kids. And there are a lot of days that I have well kept kids at the expense of my house. It seems either way I go, I am constantly trying to catch up on something.

I have made some progress these last few months, thanks to the motivating forces of Flylady and her system of organization. And I am planning a humongous garage sale soon, which should help. But I still relapse. And I still feel like the girl who missed this very important housekeeping class that all the other girls got to attend. And now that I have revealed my hideous secret, I am convinced that the other moms are going to whisper about me in the next MOPS meeting.

So this desperate housewife wants to know. How do you do it? Am I alone in this? How do YOU keep it all balanced? I know there are those among you that have menus planned months in advance. How do you stick to the menu, or do you? And how do you keep your home company clean at all times? How do you do it ALL? Share tips and strategies…or just commiserate with me if you can relate.