Measuring My Worth

Croix has been sick again today.  He threw up the rest of the day after the baseball game yesterday, only a couple times but it was after every time he tried to eat.  He kept nothing down the entire day.  My poor little love.  This morning he kept down some pedialite and crackers and then spent ten minutes hugging the toilet dry heaving.

He said to me "Mommy come rest with me."  I couldn't say no to him, nor should I have.  I gave him some anti-nausea meds.  He finally managed to keep food down.  Then he started to feel a little better.  But spent most of the day on the floor or the couch or the chair.  Maizy is getting some teeth, top ones.  She is miserable.  She has not been able to go down for a nap easily and has woken in pain/discomfort.  I've had to spend extra time putting her down and snuggling her.  She's a little grumpy and needing entertained, and her brother can't do that today.  My children have needed me more today.

I had one real objective today, get the dishes done.  There's not too many dishes, but lots of pots and pans.  It's 9:15 and the dishwasher is still waiting for me to throw silverware in it and start it.  And none of the pots or pans have been touched.  After I got the kids put to bed (Brent has scouts Tuesdays nights) I was reading my scriptures and taking just a moment to rest.  I was feeling horrible about myself because I didn't get the dishes done.  It made me realize I measure my worth and accomplishments a lot on how clean my house is and how much housekeeping I get done.  Sure that is part of my role as wife and mother but really not the most important one.  So why is that the one I'm using to measure my productivity, worth, accomplishment for the day on?  It's not just today either.  Our laundry is still not completely caught up from vacation.  To be fair it was behind before we left.  We left with a giant pile of clean laundry on the couch needing folding and putting away.  There is now an even bigger pile.  Every time I see it I feel bad about myself.  I feel like I'm doing a bad job as wife and mother.  The day before my friend comes to do house keeping I spend most of the day feeling like crap and a failure and bad about myself.  Because I have to do a lot of cleaning up so she can come deep clean.  I was telling Brent about this and he asked "when did that start?"  I don't know.  But I don't like that it has. 

It is probably true what they say that kids will not remember their house being messy.  I think I have a hard time fully accepting that since I remember my house being dirty when I was a kid.  But I also have to remember that my Mom is a hoarder and it was beyond messy or bad.  I also do a lot with my kids and we do a lot as a family.  We go out of the house a lot.  I think when given the choice I will always choose making fun memories and doing something over doing the laundry or dishes.  I can also step out of my head and know that my house is not that bad.  There are probably a lot of people who's homes are at the same cleanliness level as mine.  But I don't think that is the real point or problem.  My worth, my value, my contribution and importance to my family is much more then housekeeping.  My worth as a woman and daughter of God is always immeasurable no matter what my house looks like.  I need to stop saying and thinking that I should do a better job at keeping my house clean and just do the best I can, be ok with that and continue to put my family and children and our memories and happiness as the top priority.  So much easier said then done but I'm going to try and stop that negative inner monolog.  It's a slippery slope to bad self esteem to start beating myself up all the time over something so insignificant in an eternal perspective.