Housewife Dilemmas: When Kids are Away

Today my boys are at an all day birthday party at a game place so there are only my two girls and baby Caleb at home.  So many ideas run through my head of what to do to fill in that time.

Should I clean?  As much as I've decluttered the kids just seem to have messy as their middle name.  So many remind me that I have little ones and I will have to still constantly train.  However, I expect my 10 and 11 year old to start showing me what they've learned.  Have they?  Noooo, they've just gotten really good at doing their chores when it's chore time.  Well, that leaves a lot of time before next chore time they can make a mess.  Is this normal?  I don't know.  I will not and refuse to act like a perfectionist mom because that's not who I am and I've come to the realization that I don't ever want to be like that.  However, I don't want to raise my kids up as pigs lest their future spouses hunt me down.

Should I nap?  I haven't been sleeping well AT ALL and now that baby Juliet in my tummy is reaching inside my rib cage, I'm always feeling uncomfortable.  At least most of the time.  Sitting in church is the most uncomfortable because I have to sit for so long and I feel bruised by the time it's over.  Juliet is so gentle in my tummy so it's not like she bruises me with kicking or anything.  It's just she's discovered her new found space that's much higher and she's loving the extra room.  I'm only 30 weeks along so I'm wondering how much more painful it's gonna get.  Also, at night I've been throwing up acid and then inhaling it in my sleep.  I'll wake up and have to run for the TUMS.  I wake up about once every 1-2 hours so sleep is something I'm longing for.  However, and I'm not joking when I say this, I feel like it's great training for having to get up in the middle of the night to feed a newborn.

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Should I read and feed my soul?  Right now I am washing clothes and have been reading several books on my iPad Kindle.  <--- This has been my favorite right now because it's really nourishing to my wounded self esteem.  I haven't felt like the best housewife in the world lately but that's mostly because I've gotten behind greatly on laundry and on my chores.  I truly, truly put my focus on educating my kids and sometimes I don't get everything done around the house.  There is not a lot of support for stay at home or homeschooling moms so often we have to go online or read books to receive encouragement.  I have so many friends that are against blogging and Facebook.  I say, "Are you serious?  That IS where I get 98% of encouragement for homeschooling and being a homemaker."  Kinda sad but true. We mommies need to stick together.

Once we are done schooling and with chores we usually allow neighbor kids to flood into our house.  Kids LOVE coming to my house because we have 5 computers they can game on, trampoline out back, about 75 costumes to dress up in, lots of toys, bikes, skateboards, skates, and they looove playing on my iPad.  There are kids of every age up to age 11 here so there is always someone to play with.  As long as they are around my kids age and they are respectful they are welcome here.  I only have six kids of my own but often I have an average of 10 kids running around.  I even got them set up on Skype so their moms can get a hold of them and see what they are up to anytime with video chat.  Also, they use Skype at their house to send me a video chat asking if they can come over.  :)

I settled on reading and feeding my soul.  I rarely have time to read so I'm gonna take it.   Of course I always HAVE to be doing something productive so I'm washing clothes also.  I can never get myself to waste time on fiction books unless it's Janette Oke otherwise it's usually books that encourage like Lies Homeschooling Moms Believe, Simply Homeschool: Having Less Clutter and More Joy in Your Homeschool, or from other blogging mammas. :)