Ponderings

It has been a heck of a week.

Why? I don't really know. There isn't anything major, like an illness or anything like that. It has just been a rough week.

I think I need a vacation. I need to learn how to love my family again, how to feel like a wife and a mother, and not a seriously underpaid maid (isn't an unpaid maid a slave?).

I cleaned out the hallway coat closet this morning. I need to be getting ready for our homeschool coop, but I am looking for where I put my supplies. So far, no luck (and feeling stupid enough about that. I used to have a great memory, but now?).  I have a few supplies in the coat closet, so I looked there. Unfortunately, I could not even get into what is supposed to be a walk-in closet, so I had to pull everything out of the closet and clean the dang thing out.
It is not a huge closet, but should fit our coats and some miscellaneous supplies with enough room left over for 1-2 pairs of shoes per person.
I discovered 24 socks (I will not say 12 pairs, because I would hate to presume any of them match), and about 1,000 shoes. Obviously, no one has paid attention to my 2-pair-of-shoes limit. ArtGuy is the worst, with 4 or 5 pairs in there.

But can I complain?

No. He is out there, earning a living for the family, and as a good Christian helpmate, I can't complain. And I am grateful for his job and for his working for us.
But I have a job, too. Lately, more and more I feel it is pathetic. No one in my house listens to me. Well, they do when I yell. They all exchange sympathetic glances that seem to say, Poor Mommy has lost it again.
What they don't seem to understand is that if they pulled their weight, Mommy wouldn't have to lose it. And when a million little things go undone, or ignored....again....then Mommy does lose it over One Small Thing. Yes, it seems ridiculous, but why can't they see that I am buried under an avalanche of school, grading, lesson planning, coaching, cleaning, laundry, menu planning, shopping, and yes, I do work, too, for money. (Not much, but it helps.)

My work is appreciated by my family - I will give them that. But it is also treated as "unnecessary". They tend to view all I do with amusement. I wonder what would happen if I just stopped. When the black, hairy toilets bite them in the butt, maybe they will stop to think about how they take a clean seat for granted.

I know motherhood involves sacrifice, and stay at home is a major sacrifice. I know not everything I do will be noticed, and I do offer many, many things up.

But when does it become too much? I guess I thought there would be...not payment as in money...for what I do, but a kind of barter system. I would be paid in attention (of a good kind, not the feeling I am under psychiatric evaluation), help (not the kind you get only if you asked, no matter how many times you said it, or willing help only when you reach the point of a nervous breakdown), and a kind of partnership of the family (not the feeling like it is me vs them).

Here I sit, when I have a million things to do to get 5 people ready to leave the house for the day for a school coop.

Why do they call it homeshool when you are never at home.