An exercise in futility

I am not the best house keeper around (that award goes to my mother or my Mamaw) but I am far from the worst.  I do laundry nearly every day because I can't stand it if I want to wear something or if I want my boys to wear something and can't because it is dirty.  I hate to leave dishes in the sink because the gnats seem to love it.  The first thing I do in the morning is make my bed because I can't sleep on wrinkled sheets.  I iron my husband's shirts because I can iron 5 in the time it takes him to iron 1.  I clean my bathrooms everyday because I have 3 little boys and 1 big one and that is all I am going to say about that.  I sweep my floors at least twice a day because I can't stand to step on crumbs.  I could go on and on but I sense that about now I am getting some serious eye rolls from my friends.

Bottom line is I do all of these things because I want to.  Well that isn't exactly true, I do all these things because of "my crazy", it drives me crazy if it isn't done.  So yesterday when my husband got home he was getting short and curt responses to his questions of how my day was.  Finally he aksed "Are you in a bad mood or something?"  I had to think about it a minute.  No I wasn't, I had a pretty average day of playing with boys and making cookies for Jackson's class and teacher conferences about moving up, normal Mom stuff.   At that moment I figured it out FRUSTRATION!  That was what my problem was.  I vacuum and as soon as I put the vacuum cleaner away I turn around and Jensen is eating crackers on the rug.  I mop the floor and as soon as I dump the mop water out Joel spilled his juice all over the floor because he wasn't paying attention.  I have all the toys put away and Jackson comes downstairs with his arms full and a trail behind him.  I do the dishes and as soon as I go back into the kitchen I see Jason has left a dirty dish in the sink.  There is ALWAYS laundry, ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS because I wear at least 2 outfits each day (one of which is for Jazzercise) and Joel changes clothes with his mood and that changes often and Jensen is potty training and accidents are still many and Jackson is a 6 year old boy and yuck just seems to find him.

Now you may think my frustration is in all the "I just cleaned that and now I have to do it again" but it isn't.  I hate to hear someone say "I don't make my bed because you are just going to mess it up again so why bother".  It is annoying, there aren't many things that get done and they are done forever.  Almost anything you do you will have to do again so that is a ridiculous argument for being lazy.  I am frustrated because I sit around and look at my house needs a good cleaning and I can't bring myself to do it because as soon as I finish one room and move on to the next someone has dirtied up the first room.  I am frustrated and being that person, the "why bother" person.  Even if it is only clean for 1 hour I want that 1 hour of uninterrupted CLEAN!  I have vented my frustration to my Mom about all of these before and I am going to repeat what she said to me every time I feel myself getting frustrated this week.  So what were the wise words from my oh so wise Mother?  "Mary Lynn you can have an immaculate house or you can have children."  I chose my boys!  Even if they do bring out my crazy!