R to the elaxation

As "they" say, a mother's job is never done.

I know many wives feel like they carry more of the load around the house as far as cooking and cleaning and kids go. Well, I'm no different. Keith is finishing his Master's degree right now (11 weeks and 2 days left... but who's counting!?) so he is extremely busy between work and school. When he decided to go back to school, it was our decision. He never said "I'm going back to school". We talked about it. We weighed the options. Together we decided that getting his Master's degree was the best decision for our future. I knew that most of our household responsibility would fall on me. *I am NOT complaining- this is what I fully agreed to* As soon as the kid's are in bed (and sometimes a bit before) Keith is on his laptop, doing school until 11pm or so. That means that I start running around like a crazy lady  cleaning up from the day, preparing for tomorrow and try to stay on top of the meals at that time. Not to mention laundry, dusting and dishes. Then when it's all done, I have my bit of down time on the computer.

Why is it so hard for me to relax? Keith never "pressures" me into keeping the house spotless. He never complains when I don't feel like cooking and we go out to eat (like tonight). I actually put way more pressure on myself than he does.

Normally during naptime I to clean. I try to get the majority of it done when the kids are sleeping, that way I can really focus on them and play with them when they're awake. However today was a different story.

Our house was a bomb. Not the bomb, but A bomb. It looked like a tornado had run through our living room. I could have probably measured the dust in our kitchen. The dishwasher was full... of dirty dishes. The laundry is piled up. But this afternoon I was tired. I was crabby. I was flat out beat. All I wanted to do was to sit and relax. So that's exactly what I did, for almost 2 hours. I rarely watch television, but the 2 shows that I do watch had their season premiers on last night, and I missed them both. So I watched both episodes during nap time. I didn't clean, and I didn't feel guilty about it at all. Ok, so maybe I did a little.

As soon as Keith walked in the door, I apologized to him for being "lazy" and that our house was a mess AND I failed at making dinner tonight. And what did he do? He said "good! You needed that".

Besides the point that I love my hubby like crazy, I love the fact that he's ok with me giving myself a "time out" sometimes. I think we as women put way too much pressure on ourselves of having a perfect looking house all the time, and needing to get things done. I need to learn how to relax better. I need to be ok if our kitchen isn't perfectly clean before I go to bed at night. This is definately a work in process for me, but I'm trying.

I'll get there... someday. Hopefully.