My Dirty Little Secret

I can't resist the temptation when I think of a provoking title for a blog entry. Or a blog. I love to imagine people's brains waking up as they contemplate what my dirty little secret might be. Or what I might be confessing.

This one, believe it or not, is actually a secret that I think I may regret sharing. The reason is not that I'm embarrassed to share it, but because it is the kind of secret which, by its nature, provides me an advantage if it is not well-known. Specifically regarding my husband ... who subscribes to this blog in Google Reader. However, it's been on my mind a lot lately so it's time to spill the beans.

Are you ready to be shocked?

Stunned?

Dismayed?

Here it is: I have a lot of free time on my hands. I manage quality time with my kids, helping Joseph with his homework, playing with the twins, doing the laundry, cleaning the kitchen 3+ times daily, vacuuming regularly and cleaning bathrooms with time to spare. And when I say "time to spare" I mean hours every day.

The reason this secret is appalling is twofold. First, naturally, is that my husband will be a bit more critical of the housework that gets overlooked if he knows I had time to get the work done but simply chose not to. 

Secondly, there are women out there who, unlike me, don't have twins that play with each other for hours every day, leaving their mother to eat chocolates and read novels downstairs. Those women will not look favorably on me giving the impression that Stay-at-Home-Motherdom is anything but grinding physical labor from dawn to dusk.

Allow me to clarify before I go on. Stay-at-home-motherhood **IS** absolutely grinding physical labor from dawn to dusk for a number of years. I just grew out of that phase in the last two months. It happened when my twins decided they actually like each other, and that they really, really love playing with Geotrax. So we have a new daily routine:

7:00 a.m. Kids drowsily choose between wreaking havoc or being cute and cuddly until breakfast time.

7:30 Finish up breakfast, get Joseph dressed and kicked out the door to walk to school.

8:00 Say to the twins, "Okay, mommy needs to clean. Go upstairs and play." The twins obediently toddle up the stairs and start playin together. On M/W I then clear the table, wipe the table and countertop, unload the dishwasher and then load in the breakfast dishes. On T/Th/F I race upstairs quickly to get in  30 minutes of exercise before it's time to take the twins to preschool.

 

9:00 until 11:30 Preschool some days. Other days, the twins play quietly upstairs (except when they bite and scratch each other and Mommy needs to intervene) until close to lunch time. In the mornings, I also do my singing practice (while cleaning the kitchen) and start one load of laundry. The entire housecleaning bit takes under an hour and the house generally looks pretty acceptable. Then I have time to feed the old internet addiction for a while, reply to emails and check out everyone's status updates on Facebook.

Lunchtime -- self explanatory, then I tidy up the kitchen again and go through a mini-routine of cleaning countertops and tables again.

Then comes the time of day which makes me feel terribly guilty. The twins usually go back upstairs to play (sometimes with a little bit of gentle nudging from their mom, who doesn't want the morning cleaning to be undone) and I look around me. The house is generally tidy. I've done my singing practice. And I'm tired. So I lay down on the couch and read. I often fall asleep for a brief nap. Then I wake up, more energized than ever, and fold and put away laundry. Of course I'll spend some time upstairs with the kids, playing and talking to them throughout the day. But I don't do that for hours, so I still have a lot of free time.

If I want to make cards, I can do that. If I want to update the budget spreadsheet, I can do that. If I want to send an email to an old friend, I can do that. I really have a lot of freedom to choose. The only thing I can't do is leave the house, because (1) the twins will fall asleep in the car and (2) I need to be home when Joseph gets home from school.

I'm not used to this new freedom. So far, I haven't used my afternoon time very well. I don't make particularly good dinners ever. I feel rather uninspired in that arena, unfortunately. I spend a lot of time reading, checking websites that I forget I've checked three minutes earlier and feeling guilty that I'm not using my time better.

Then I realize it's almost time for my husband to get home. I start looking around at the messes accumulated from the family during the course of the day like coats that have spilled out of the closet, homework sitting on tables and toys that have migrated down to the main floor. I tidy up the main rooms and wrack my brains for dinnertime inspiration. Once he arrives, life is a whirlwind of children screaming demands at me, making a dinner that nobody wants to eat, cleaning up a kitchen that has somehow gone from clean to "impossibly filthy" in about 60 minutes, nagging Joseph to finish his homework, putting kids in bath times, taking kids out of bath times, brushing teeth, reading stories, choosing pajamas, giving goodnight kisses, getting cups of water, threatening children with unspeakable horror if they don't stay in bed, and then cleaning the kitchen more. 

Then 8:00 rolls around and things quiet down again. I can read. I can take a bath. I can go visit family while Josh stays with the kids. I can go shopping. I can watch American Idol. Or spend some quality time with my husband.

When you think about it, my life is completely decadent. And I am completely lazy. It's my dirty little secret. If I was sure I didn't want any more kids, it would be about time to start thinking about a part-time job or starting the great American novel or finding some community venture to get involved with. I'm not ready to commit to that stage of life yet, though. I still haven't decided if my family is complete or not. I need to figure that out soon. In the meantime, I need to get myself a hobby other than reading, because reading always leads to sleeping and consequently staying up way too late to finish my novel. It's a vicious cycle. 

As I stop to think why in the world I am rambling about this as if it really were a dirty little secret, I can't help but feel grateful for the wonderful life I have right now. I don't take it for granted. So many things could happen to put me back at square one. Josh could lose his job. I could have another baby. I could get really sick. Or Josh could. Or the kids could. Someone in my family could really need me for something that takes up a lot of time. I could get a new church responsibility that keeps me busier than my current one. So much of it is uncontrollable and impossible to predict. So for now, I bask in the guilty pleasure of living the good life. And I pray and thank God for the life I have. And I wonder what the future will bring, knowing that whatever it is, I'll be up to the challenge because I am strong.