Work and Life

I'm a failure. I'm being driven to the ends of time on an exhausting and elusive chase. I've read about it in magazines for mothers and parenting families. I've watched Kelly Ripa exude it in her Electrolux commercials. I've watched other mothers from afar, gazing upon them as they seemingly manage finishing out a work day, clickity-clack home in their Jimmy Choo's, where they empty the dishwasher and fix a nutritious dinner while their kids sit quietly (and happily) around the kitchen table scratching out answers to math problems with their perfectly sharpened pencils.

Maybe my problem is that I don't own a single pair Jimmy Choos, we could start there. But really, really I have tried to close that gap on the work-life balance heeled and unheeled. In fact, I have been known to harriedly vacuum my entire house with my dress pants and heels on in a matter of 20-minutes just so I can convince myself that I am truly a master of all my domains. Okay, this also may have been done on some very repressed, sub-conscious level just to prove something to my husband. Unfortunately, or fortunately, high-heeled vacuuming is not something that happens regularly in my world. Despite the house needing a thorough vacuuming everyday, it often goes to an every other day sort of thing. Despite my best efforts at establishing a system, so that the dishes or the laundry or the itty-bitty scraps of paper from kids' projects never get the best of me -- despite my system, there are shortcomings. As it were, The System happens to apparently be my system and mine alone. Not my dog, nor any of my four children, including my amoral 11-month old baby (who has been walking for 1-month now and in her hands-free glory picks up various kitchen objects to deposit into the toilet - and vice versa) and certainly not my husband care for my system of hooks and well-labeled bins, or daily jobs, or spacious compartments, or sanitizing sprays or my constant reminders to put things away in the "correct spot."

Alas, the job of keeping house is mine and mine alone.

Which is why the following happens while I am away at work on my 14-hour nights:

This, sadly, is only a representation of 1/3 of our house. I crave domesticity in violent waves, tearing ruefully at my ever-sagging cheeks when confronted with the task of reviving my ailing system. I become poetic about the covers of Real Simple, taking notes on the 100-Ways to Have a Clutter Free Home, allowing myself to become rosy-cheeked at the thought of chronic perfection. I allow my imagination to play the If Only Game -- e.g. if only I had a cleaning service, if only I was a stay-at-home parent, if only I had $250K . . .

But as I sit here, the reality of the situation becomes garishly apparent:

1) I fed my kids warm, toasty Petit Pain aux Chocolat this morning (2-strikes: one for morning junk food, the other for not dealing with the baking sheets)

2) There is a wet spot on my leg (3-strikes: Tova has a nasty diaper from being on day #8 of antibiotics, she's still in said diaper, I transferred her to the floor)

3) Clothes on the line (2-strikes: they are now dry but yet to be put away, there is a laundry basket waiting to be hung out to dry since last night -- shame on me for not doing a better job at controlling the weather)

4) Chalky footprints throughout the house (3-strikes: I haven't mopped yet, the chalk is still out on the patio not put away, Tova was just eating that chalk)

I'd keep going, but I really need to change Tovey's dipey. And bathe her. And put her clothes in the washing machine.

So, I guess my answer to Real Simple and the the BS load of crap about the work-life balance is the following:

Kelly's 7-Ways to a Simple, Clutter Free Life

1) Get rid of all yer shit

2) Teach the baby to use a potty

3) Join a nudist colony

4) Stop using silverware when eating

5) Eat only take-out (with your hands)

6) Don't buy sidewalk chalk, regift it wherever possible

7) Shape up! Cause Lord knows, if I don't have my shit together not a single one of the rest of ya' does -- and that's the truth. Frickin' Kelly Ripa . . .