Conflict of Interest

I particularly like to be productive on Mondays. I do laundry, tidy up the house, do grocery shopping etc. It makes me feel prepared for the rest of the week. This morning I was ready to hit the ground running when Josiah and I had a conflict of interest.

Josiah desperately wanted to go outside. He wanted to swing and he wanted me to push him. I explained that Mommy needed to do x, y, and z before I could come outside and that led to crying. He knew his Daddy was upstairs so he said, "Need Daddy. Daddy push swing." I explained that Daddy was working so he would not be able to come outside. More crying....for Daddy. So we took a trip upstairs to see that Daddy was really working. At the sight of Daddy Josiah ran into his arms telling Daddy how much he was needed and how badly he wanted Daddy to push the swing. Poor Jeremy. You could see the struggle on his face.

As I watched this scene play out I had my own inner struggle. I really wanted a tidy house and clean laundry. But my children are only little for so long and the weather really was perfect.... I told Jeremy was I would go outside and everything else would wait.

We were outside all morning. Josiah was a very happy little guy. Aliza was happy too. I still had that desire to be productive so Aliza and I vacuumed the car. At least one of our earthly possessions was clean!

I paid the price for being on my feet all morning and climbing around in the van with the vacuum. I came in for lunch, tripping over the debris on the kitchen floor and realized that a spot in my lower back hurt. Really bad.

My backup plan was to scurry around during DVD time doing all the things I had planned to do in the morning. I was lucky to get the dishes washed and the first load of laundry started. Then I MADE myself sit on the couch until rest time. Luck for me, Aliza fell asleep this afternoon and I got to take an extended nap.

So I finished the laundry and made a grocery list, played outside with Josiah again before supper, made supper and then went grocery shopping. I went shopping alone. Delightful. As I was putting the groceries in the cart (tired of feeling that spot in my back and feeling like I have the most active baby in the world inside me) I was counting how many times groceries have to be handled before they make it in the cupboards. Many, many times. Jeremy was there to help carry in the groceries and already had the children headed in the direction of bed. Being so focused on groceries I didn't even notice (until Jeremy pointed it out) that ALL of the toys were cleaned up. You would think I would have noticed, but I didn't. I can get really focused! It was a most perfect surprise!

The point of this story is that even though I played outside all morning, everything that I thought needed to get done today, got done. My back is feeling better right now too.