I have decided not to be prey to "Mom Guilt" anymore. I am no longer going to let what I think  I should or shouldn't be doing as a mom rob me of joy with my kids now. So here is the first in a long line of tips that hopefully you can use if you too are paralyzed with  "Mom Guilt" and want to let it go:

TIP #1 -- Come over to my house at any time -- Just POP RIGHT IN -- and you will no longer feel bad about your housekeeping skills!

I feel so grateful for friends who have popped in and seen my house in all its Grand Tornado-ness and still love me and still pop by. Now when I say Grand Tornado, I do not mean "usually perfectly styled but today I have a few toys out." No, I mean full on chaos and dish, clothes and toy carnage. I've discovered that I am not really bugged by visual clutter , and it takes me A LOT longer to be bothered by stuff piling up around me. I will have a Super motivated day every once in a while and storm through my house, cleaning like mad. Then, I feel so proud of myself that I give myself the week off.  So by the weekend I'm back in disaster recovery mode again. This has been my consistent cycle for the last ahem eight years. I am trying to swallow hard and invite anyone in no matter the state of my house so that I can break down the feelings of inadequacy and the feeling that my house is me. I use to disclaim every time someone came in and then I started to stop myself because I realized all it did was make people more aware of the mess. Now I'm not saying I am going to give up cleaning. I'm just going to give up the guilt and shame attached so that I can be free to clean my house for me and my family not to impress others. The plus side to all of this is that if I ever pop into your house you NEVER EVER have to disclaim about the cleanliness of your house because you'll know I feel right at home.

(p.s. don't you love that Burger is sitting in the diaper box that has now been turned into a car or boat or airplane -- soaring over the mess that is my bedroom)
loads of love & corned beef xoxo

2 comments:

  1. Imogen EveNovember 12, 2012 at 8:49 PM

    You sound just like me. Seriously. There was an incident involving a toddler and rice and salt and flour and blueberries in the kitchen this morning while I was getting dressed. I've been in recovery mode from cleaning that up ALL DAY. Recovery mode may continue for the next few days/week.

    I also always find myself apologising for the state of my house, I'm going to learn a lesson from you and stop apologising. You're right, it just draws attention to the mess.

    ps Burger is very cute.

    pps all photos on my blog are cropped to hide the mess. It is my one, neatish place!

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    Replies
    1. heidiNovember 12, 2012 at 11:34 PM

      hahaha -- I too crop out mess, thus the artistically blurry picture of my mess -- I want to be ready to broadcast it, but a huge part of me hopes that by the time I'm really ready to do that I will be better at cleaning and it can be a "Look at how it was" post.
      Isn't it amazing how much can be done in the short amount of time it takes to get dressed?
      ps truthfully I am ALWAYS in recovery mode lol!
      pps it's such a blessing that they're cute!

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