“So, How DO you get it ALL done???”
“So, How DO you get it ALL done???” Blurts out a weary mama in the trenches of motherhood. She was homeschooling her oldest, training her toddler, and getting up in the night with her baby and couldn’t imagine how I had time to work from home on top of homeschooling and childrearing.
“Do you ever sleep?” She laughs, but her question was serious. She is wanting to know my secret success formula for accomplishing all that is required of a homeschooling mama. How do I get it all done? I have to seriously resist the urge to crack up laughing. You see if she saw my overflowing laundry pile, she probably wouldn’t have asked! 😉
The truth is: NO ONE gets it ALL done ALL the time. If you wore all the hats required of a homeschooling mama, you’d topple over and your head would lose them all. Imagine yourself leaving the house in a big white chef hat, a chauffeur hat fit for a luxury taxi cab driver, your house cleaning service worker’s hat and your scholar hat to constantly be teaching your children along the way.
Even if you could balance just those four proverbial hats of motherhood on your head, you would look superbly ridiculous trying! (Haha 😉 )
You have to put some of those hats back in the closet to save your neck, your proverbial fashion sense, and your sanity!
Motherhood really is a balancing act even before you throw full-time home educator into the mix. You have to make time for the important things during any given season. Taking time to evaluate your priorities will help you determine what you need to keep up with in your juggling and balancing routine; it will also aid in showing what needs to be tossed into the closet for later before everything comes crashing down at once!
Maybe you are in a season of up-all-night-every-night with an infant. Does having a spotless house and freshly cleaned, styled hair seem like a more important use of your time, or does getting another hour of sleep in and napping with your kiddoes? Which one will make you a better mama? Which one will save your sanity when in survival mode?
Your expectations may need to be dropped off in your proverbial closet, along with those extra hats! 😉
Maybe you are in a season where cooking every meal from scratch is necessary because of food allergies. All the extra time being poured into your family there may warrant looking into a housekeeper to help you keep up with the housework, or a math tutor to help you keep up with homeschooling.
The housework can always be reevaluated as well. You can sleep on sheets that have gone an extra week without washing, and use a toilet a few days past its weekly scrubbing, but you can’t eat on yesterday’s dirty dishes or wear dirty clothes. (Ask me how I know… 😉 )Balance those priorities realistically!
There is always a way to find balance, even in life’s most difficult and hectic seasons.
The ONE thing you don’t want to give up in your balancing act is your quiet time with the Lord. It seems like that is a reasonable thing to do away with when you are in the midst of the struggles of life, but don’t do it, mama!
You need that time to refresh your soul. You need Jesus to be the Lord of your life and your savior, sustainer, and ever-present friend.
My other non-negotiables include time with my hubby and my relationship with my kiddoes. Those aren’t ever worth losing to have finished our language arts curriculum early, attend all of our scheduled homeschooling group’s activities, or finishing every math problem in the book.
Once we have learned to perfect our balancing act, always choosing to CHOOSE the important and the eternal over the checklist we have built in our minds (or in our really pretty notebooks 😉 ), then we can rest in knowing we may not have gotten to it ALL but we have gotten to the BEST.
That real life-breathing balance may not be the most picture perfect, Pinterest worthy, share with every Facebook friend you have ever virtually met perfection, but it is what God has called us to in the season we are in. It is HIS beautiful plan for us during our current season of mamahood, and it doesn’t involve the neck breaking weight of all those proverbial hats. 😉
And that’s more than good enough for me!
So the next time you look at another mama and think, “How does she do it ALL!?!? How does she get it ALL done??” Remember the truth: She doesn’t! 😉
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Tiffany
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