Here's to Getting Nothing Done!

These days in the age of the internet, it feels like we're presented with a few contrasting views of motherhood:

There's the frazzled mother with no sense of organization - her house is a disaster, her kids are running wild, and everyone is miserable.

We weren't miserable, but things sure were nuts!

There's the zen mother, who has taken the art of decorating to a new high, stocking her shelves with handmade wooden toys purchased on etsy (or better yet, crafted lovingly herself from sustainable lumber). Her children only wear natural fibers, and have the skill of always being photographed looking somewhat ethereal.

I don't have a picture to illustrate this - we have NEVER been close to that state!

There's the detached mom, whose home is immaculate thanks to the maid, whose children are perfectly coiffed thanks to the babysitter, and who fits in her daily Pilates, home business, and errands effortlessly.

You TOO can clean one section of your living room well enough to take a picture that makes you look like you have it all together!

Then there's the realistic mom, and I think she's a mom we're seeing a little more often. She's a mom who knows that it's impossible to religiously adhere to EVERY aspect of any one parenting style.

She knows that sometimes you're going to have to choose between folding the laundry or playing with the kids, and she also might be the mom who manages to invent the brilliant game of "laundry challenge" and kills two birds with one stone.

Sometimes you ignore the mess and let them be!

And she's the mom who has realized that the secret to maintaining a halfway-decent home while not neglecting one's children is just to accept the fact that nothing will ever get done.

I mean, maybe not *nothing* - there's always the necessary wiping/dressing/diapering/pottying/feeding that goes on throughout the day. And that's something, but that's the bare minimum, and after a point, the bare minimum just isn't enough!

But she's the mom who realizes that these endless to-do lists, with all of their wishes and hopes and "maybe if they all nap at the same time and then go to bed early I'll have time to do all of this-es," are just going to be depressing in the long run.

Maybe you're more efficient than the realistic mom. Or maybe you DO have a maid and a nanny! But me? I'm in the trenches with the rest of you, and most days the best I can expect to do is one thing. You get to pick one - do the laundry, cook a nutritious meal from scratch, clean the bathroom, go to the grocery store and put everything away...

Pick ONE. And don't expect to get anything more done (aside from loving those sweet children, reading 87 books to them, and singing The Wheels on the Bus 42 times). Anything more than that one thing is a bonus! But don't expect to get it all done - nobody can.

It took me years to figure out that all I can reasonably expect to do is one thing per day. And these days, now that I've got that much figured out? It's like I'm an efficiency expert! All because I can do one thing.