A rough week

The last week has been a tough one.  I feel like I am nothing more than a cook, a nanny and a maid.  I have had absolutely no time to do anything fun.  My options for having any kind of hobby or to get a little exercise is to get up earlier or stay up later.  Even on the rare occasions where I do get to do something I choose to do, I'm interrupted so many times that I don't even bother anymore.  Every time I think I'm making progress on the house or my endless "to do" list the dog destroys a bag of trash, or my son breaks something or the baby refuses to let me put her down without screaming.  I literally clean up one disaster to go on to the next.  My schedule is to clean and repeat, cook, clean and repeat.

My job as a researcher had the similar kind of redundancy and I often had to repeat the same thing over again, but at least I was interesting.  I hate to say it, but I feel like I am "just" a mom.  And that's terrible to say.  I know what I do now is important, but most of the time is sucks.  Before when I was cleaning up poop or the lint and hair that gets caught in the corners of the house I knew I had a purpose outside of cleaning all things disgusting.  Now that's all I do.  It's even difficult to want to play with the kids because I know it will just be another mess I have to clean up.

I was so looking forward to painting with the kids or sitting and playing with play dough.  But I don't have the time to sit with them and I certainly don't want to have to clean up a bunch of paint; not when I can't even get the floors mopped once a week.  When it takes 2 hours to empty a dishwasher, there just isn't much time for reading books or playing outside.  I know I'm being too much of a Martha (Luke 10:38-42), but if I didn't the house would smell and we'd be walking around in filth.  And I just can't do that.  It's not like I'm trying to keep the house sterile.  I just want to vacuum once a week.  Why can't I get that done?