I am looking for a new groove. Since Butterfly started preschool last week I am still searching for a groove for the other two. The younger two still need a nap and I just started babysitting for someone yesterday again, he gets dropped off at 3:15-3:30. Abby needs to be picked up between 3:05 and 3:15. So the parents of the little boy I watch and I decided it would be easier if I picked him up after I got Abby. Let's hope that I can do the picking up easily and without incident.
Our current schedule is something like this:
Up and dressed by 8am
Beds made and rooms picked up by 9am
Free play until 10am.
Kids can watch a movie or continue free play until lunch (they usually continue to play)
Lunch at 11:30
Drop Butterfly off by 12:40 at pre-school.
Bee and Bubby in bed by 1pm.
Pick up Butterfly from school by 3:15.
Pick up Little Mister by 3:30.
Let the kids play outside until dinner.
Make dinner.
Dinner is at 6:30 or whenever Little Mister gets picked up.
7:30 bedtime
This is just a typical day. This doesn't include a playdate, or shopping trip, or anything. It is just our typical day. And we are busy!
Mom's are always busy. The term stay at home mom is just a myth if you ask me. I am not sure there is a good term for what I do. I am mom and that, in itself, is wonderful to my kids. We don't just stay home. We go to the park, to the zoo, to the store, to appointments, and occasionally out to eat. We go and have playdates and go to birthday parties. And now, as I am moving into a different stage of life, we go to school.
One of my friends on facebook had this quote on her status:
"We feed a misguided sense of significance when we make the assumption that if a person is busy he or she must be important or, to turn it around, that to be important a person must be busy. If we are honest, we will see that underlying all of this busyness lies an inevitable awareness that we have begun to lose a sense of what our actions mean, and ultimately, what our lives mean." Gordon T. Smith
How powerful is that?! Why do we keep ourselves so busy? Is it because of what the quote says, that we want to feel important? What does God say about being busy?
Let's investigate that a bit. In Titus 2 we hear Paul writing to encourage Titus, a fellow believer. He is instructing Titus in his journey with establishing a church that Paul had started in Crete. Paul wanted to make sure that Titus knew what qualities were admirable in church leadership.
From Titus 2:3-5 -
3Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
Let's look at verse 5...to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind...
I wish I was busy at home. But rarely am I at home. God is calling us to be at home. Now I don't want anyone to take offense to what I am saying. I am not saying that if you have a job you need to quit and be barefoot and pregnant at home. I am not saying if you have other outside interests that you need to quit doing those. What I AM saying is that we need to reevaluate our priorities. Do we honestly need to be doing as much as we are? Do we need to have school, sports, music, shopping, playdates, going to do this or that, as much as we do? I am not expemt from this question. We do a lot of stuff. And that is just what it is, stuff. I don't think we NEED to be doing most of it. I think we want to feel important so we fill our lives with busywork.
So take a look at your life. Evaluate your situation. Do you feel run down and burnt out because you are doing so much outside of your home? Are you just making busywork for yourself? Let's take a minute and reflect.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog today. I really appreciate any comments that you may have, whether I agree with them or not, so please post them! :) <3 Alison
I'm calling my boss and telling him that Alison said I need to quit....lol
ReplyDeleteI do only work part time, so even though I leave the house to work, I still consider myself a stay at home mom cause I'm home all day except a few evenings a week. I have quite a different schedule then you do, but primarily due to my husband takes my vehicle to work and I would rather not drive his old manual truck. lol So I am busy busy at home. I strive to have a clean house, dinner ready to eat by 5, homeschool and projects playing ect. Somedays I do feel like I didn't "do enough around the house" but why do I feel like that? Do I not deserve a break? I should really just enjoy the situation that we have here, and not dwell on "doing enough" Enough for whom? Interesting topic, and is getting me thinking. Thanks Alison! Well written!
I agree so much! Derek and I just recently decided to start declining invitations and simply saying no to the million plans that always seem to run our lives. I'm working full-time and he just became a SAHD! I'm so excited for him because I think that he will be more relaxed about "being home". At one point, we were picking up and travelling or having guests EVERY weekend and it really got us run down. For the past two weekends, we stayed home, attended local birthday parties and relaxed... it was amazing. The kids got so much more free play and undivided attention from us.
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