J is for Jobs

Until I got married I never knew how many different jobs a wife or mother has. Each day I take care of 2 babies for about 12 hours, I am a chef whipping up 3 meals and 2 snacks and 1 bottle. I'm the housekeeper constantly trying to keep with a never ending list of chores. Some days require me to be a seamstress mending broken clothes or a handywoman (like when the chain on the toilet broke and I had to fix it!). Occasionally I'm a travel agent booking flights and hotel rooms then packing and unpacking for everyone. When there are boo boos I'm a nurse. And all of my kids' waking hours I am their teacher. They learn so much just from watching me do these jobs and spending time doing art or playing tea party with them. And on top of teaching I am their primary disciplinarian so I have to teach them right from wrong and I have to help them get to heaven!

Putting all your energy into them can be satisfying at first but as time goes on it usually leads to frustration and boredom. I REALLY struggle with routine - spontaneity is more my thing - but what do tiny children need? Stability and ROUTINE! One easy way that I try to combat the repetition is to practice a little meditation before each chore. I try to remember pause and say "Lord, I do this out of love for you." The 10 seconds I spend saying that to God pausing for Him somehow make even the most mundane task so necessary to my salvation. For example, we were super low on food last night so I had to make a Costco run with both girls. On the way there I said my little prayer and it just transformed the task from "Ugh I hate going to Costco myself with the girls because it's too hard and I need to get home for bath time and this is going to take forever" to "We really need food. Taking an hour out of my day to do this will provide us food for a couple of weeks. We are really blessed to have the money to buy food. If it takes longer than hour, whatever. It's not like the girls have any concept of time." And the trip turned out not to be a big deal at all once I relaxed...I may even be getting a couch from Costco :)

Try a little recollection this week and let me know how it goes!