Parenting solo has given me many opportunities for self-examination. Inventory, if you will. And in that spirit, I give you a list of things I am NOT good at.
Food things. All the food things, I truly hate them. Planning food, shopping for it, bringing it in, putting it away, pulling it out, cooking it, fighting with my children as they refuse to eat it, cleaning it up. If I could just do dishes and no other food stuff, I would be a happy mom.
This is why Slice does real cooking and we're not as well-fed with him gone.
Adulting. Most obnoxious, yet totally fitting, word for all the things I always procrastinate. Making appointments (and keeping them!), getting tires rotated, buying chicken food, replacing lightbulbs, calling babysitters. Calling anyone really. I get by surprisingly well without doing many things that I'm perfectly capable of. Maybe I have low-level anxiety? High-functioning depression? Maybe I'm lazy, or I'm a Type 2/4 who avoids forced interaction with people. Who knows.
Cleaning regularly. I have a printed cleaning schedule hanging in my kitchen that has not been followed ... at all. Since George is done nursing, I'll be better about my household duties, but it's hard to motivate myself when I know it'll be undone in a day. And no one but myself will even see my effort.
Doing anything regularly. (Except naps.) Slice and I have had this conversation about a million times.
Slice: "The kids need to do jobs every day. You shouldn't be doing everything."
Me: ".... but it's easier to just do it myself."
Slice: "And Will has to do his homework every day."
Me: ".... but homework is dumb."
Slice: "Wouldn't your life be easier with a schedule?!"
Me: .........
I'm doing pretty well with laundry though, I'll have you know.
Oh man, I feel this on so many levels and I can't even imagine doing it if Jeff was one. I mean, for starters, cooking can be fun but cooking for yourself (or yourself + children who may or may not eat what you make) is lame and I give up if Jeff is not going to be at the meal. Or sometimes even when he is.
ReplyDeleteI also hate the word adulting but understand it's existence at the same time. I have some mild anxiety, which I think contributes to my suddenly deciding to leave texts or emails or phone calls unanswered when it wouldn't even be hard to answer them! Or doing a gazillion other of the things like you mentioned which are not hard and which I am fully capable of doing.
And I also created a cleaning schedule a few weeks ago and I'm still very hit or miss with it. Please teach me how you have figured out laundry, because I'm the worst at that most weeks. I'm great at vacuuming, though. And Annika's room is generally the cleanest place in our house. Maybe it's the most fun to keep clean? It's definitely more aesthetically pleasing than any other place in our home...
This was a long comment - but I had to commiserate.