Slam Dunk Theory of Chaos: Why I am thankful for forks

I grew up in a house full of messies. I have two brothers and a sister and she was the only exception in our family of six. She is a clean freak sometimes, but at least she doesn't take out her obsession on the rest of us. When we go visit, she stays out of the guest rooms and spends her visiting time wiping down the countertops or vacuuming. 

On my own, I'm relatively neat, easily keeping up with the housework of one. That's why I know I am capable of living in a clean house. Keeping up with the cleanliness of the house with two is more difficult, but a task I could manage. I don't like cleaning up after other people, but I can do it as long as the other person reciprocates. After Coral was born, my ability to keep up with the chores began to decline. Thus my theory of chaos began to evolve:

One child is capable of a single child's amount of chaos. I'll denote that with X, so 1= X. Two children together are capable of X and their combined X as well, 2= 3X + 3X = 6X. Three children together are capable of their own X, the combined X of a pair of children twice and the combined X of all three of them twice, 3= 12X + 12X + 12X = 36X. Four children is the level of chaos I grew up in: 4 = 156X. 

Here's a pictograph of it:

Or, if you like,

That's after two days of being sick. 

I'll get the floor swept and mopped and all back to clean, but it never ends with kids. Two days of sick and I'm looking at two days of clean up! 

In an effort to keep my sanity, I've decided that my house does not need to be super clean like my sister's, just clean enough that my husband can get around in his wheelchair. My shelving is cluttered, but I know where everything is, my drawers aren't full of neatly folded clothes, but they're in there, and my sink often has dirty dishes in it, but I try to keep that under control too. My problem with dishes is that my dishwasher has to take sick days (like the last two) and can't wash dishes while I'm teaching or showering or sleeping or basically anything I do that isn't dishes. The other thing about that is I despise washing the dishes. It's another never ending job that has to be done at least three times a day if I am to keep up. In an effort to fix my attitude about dishes, I've begun to meditate on thankfulness while washing. For every lousy fork and skinny glass I need a special tool to clean, I thank God. I make it a point to say in my head, "I'm thankful for this fork. I've gotten many good years of use out of it and without it and others like it, I'd be eating with my hands."

It's a useful tool for me because it fosters thankfulness in myself and helps me to teach my children to be thankful too. Basically, my chaos leads to my thankfulness and hopefully a lifetime of thankfulness in my children too. 

The Slam Dunk Take on Courage

I'm sitting on my son's toddler bed, keeping him company as he wades through the last few minutes of his waking hours into the calm solitude of sleep. Today has been a good day for us. He's been fighting a sinus infection due to allergies and has not been the most gracious of bubbies. However, today he's managed to keep a relatively good mood on the surface. I know he's miserable, but he's been brave today. 

His courage is inspiring. He's been inspiring me and his sister since he was a brand new infant. He basically cried for the first three months of his life because he was digestively miserable and altogether too big for the package in which he found himself. At three months I bought him a walker and my dad modified it to fit his short legs. Within a week he was terrorizing his sister on wheels. He rode that thing into the ground-- buy the time he began walking at ten months the wheels were flat! When he began walking, it wasn't good enough for him-- he needed to walk with a big stick! He's been pushing himself and the limits of his packaging all his life. Today he pushed himself to be a better playmate even though he feels awful. 

My own courage does not come naturally to me. I am inherently an introvert and people often exhaust me. It takes a lot of energy for me to be a good friend, mother, wife, daughter...  I just have to work it. I have, too! I spent the better part of my 20's working past my introversion and making friends. I'm so glad I did because now, ten years later, I still have some of those amazing friends. I also have two children who often teach me as I am teaching them, and a wonderful husband who says he loves me more, not because he loves me more than I love him, but because he loves me more than anyone else on the planet.

It's taken me years of hard emotional work and building up my courage to get here today, yet my work isn't completed. My son's natural courage is a reminder to me that everyday I have to keep my own courage up and I need to push myself to be better than I am. How else will I keep up with him? 

Slam Dunk's Painted Lady Butterflies

So this is new. I never thought of myself as a blogger, but having contemplated the idea for a while, I've decided to use this outlet to get the need to write and the need to emote out of my system.

I'm a new homeschool teacher! My daughter just started Kindergarten! We've been studying the life cycle of butterflies the last few weeks and today our painted lady butterflies from Insect Lore hatched from their Chrysalides! We actually managed to watch the last of the five hatch. The others came out over night, but the last hatched during school. My daughter was enthralled, of course. So was I, for that matter.  We'll release the butterflies in a few days, but until then, we will be happily drawing pictures and making a Kindergarten science journal full of drawings and photos of the last few weeks.