Work of love

It feels like I spent so much time in the kitchen today, yet I hardly ate a thing.

I made snacks. Cleaned up the snacks. Then prepared different kinds of snacks because they didn’t like the ones I made earlier.

I spent time on the kitchen floor playing with pots and pans. Then dancing above them to their tune. Anything so I could use both hands to prepare something I wouldn’t get a chance to eat. They had so much fun while it lasted. I love it when they laugh together. I got a worth it kind of headache.

But there were fights too. Many. So I’d pick up one, and distract the other. That bought more time.

The dishes kept emerging from nowhere. One by one they made their way back to the bench. That was my doing. I found them everywhere other than in the kitchen where they belong.

But that’s not the only place it feels like I spent the day away.

I spent so much time in the bathroom. Yet I didn’t manage a shower.

Brushing teeth. Finding their toys they hid in the cupboards. Bathing them.

By the end of the day, they didn’t want a bath. Then they didn’t want to get out. They tried to draw pictures with bath crayons, and I tried to keep the water from wetting the floor. By that time of day I become the fun police.

I also spent what felt like hours in their bedrooms doing a variety of things but mostly either helping them get to sleep or setting up quiet time. Yet still, I didn’t manage the same for myself. Definitely not the sleep part anyway.

I’d change their nappies there, change them into yet another pair of clean clothes and load their drawers with more clothes. Then I’d watch the sleeping part for what always feels like “too long”. Why does it feel like that? Anyway, that was the closest I came to resting today.

It feels like I’ve spent so much time inside the same four walls today, doing the same things as I did yesterday, without much time for me.

Because I have.

And sometimes when I’m overly tired the relentless of it all can make me feel like a slave in my own home.

But I’m not.

Not even close.

I’m someone else’s home right now.

That’s not slavery.

That’s a work of love.

⠀