Like any discipline (eating healthfully, meditation, exercise), blogging is hard to get back to when I’ve had some time off. I’ve taken time off for a couple of reasons: laziness (I’ve been sleeping in on my writing mornings because I’ve started adding to my running mornings which means more mornings of getting up at 5:45 which therefore means on my non-run mornings – even with the enticement of cathartic-creative-writing time – I have a hard time dragging my butt outta bed) and the other reason is…well, kind of also laziness but more overwhelmedness. We’ve left the honeymoon period. Obviously we’re still just as in love with Kayliana as ever (duh), but things have gotten a bit harder. She’s not a newborn anymore – she doesn’t sleep all day; she’s going through MAJOR separation anxiety with me and gets all kinds of massive-upset if I leave the room; she’s not a fan of lying on the floor by herself for playtime/tummy time; she’s not on a nap schedule (though we’re trying to work on it); after a while she gets tired of the exersaucer and bouncy seat so I wear her in the frontpack carrier which makes getting anything done pretty laborious and tricky, and she’s ridiculously terrified of the vacuum cleaner. Basically, this all adds up to one thing: a messy/dirty/cluttered house that is the bane of my existence and causes chaos in my soul.

It’s funny: there’s a divide in my life. Two extremes. A handful of people closest to me judge the cleanliness of my house and make (loving) comments of how I should really spend some time dusting. They ask casual conversational questions like “so, when was the last time you washed windows?” And then there’s the other group (Mike included) who think that I have way too high of standards and the house is perfectly fine and not anywhere near a state of squalor. I wish I could side with this latter more lax group, but the fact of the matter is: the cleanliness/clutteriness of our home really does affect how I’M feeling.

So, it has come to this: Mike has offered that we hire someone to come in once or twice a month to help with the cleaning (OK, by ‘help’ I mean this person would DO the cleaning…we’d have a house cleaner; I just can’t bring myself to say those words). I have such a hard time – as many of us do – admitting that I need help, especially with something that I feel is MY job, my responsibility and this whole, “I’m a stay-at-home mom, it’s what I do, we aren’t both working full-time, I SHOULD be able to keep my house clean!” attitude. Back in my postpartum depression days, my therapist called this “should-ing all over yourself.” I’m a really good should-er! And then, I should so much and I pile on guilt too that there’s a huge pile of bull-should that we all have to avoid stepping in. That’s definitely a mess NO ONE wants to clean up! So, now I’m in the search of basically trying to find a clone of me so that I can have a little help to maintain sanity. No luck, thus far and I keep putting off the search though it’s really something that I should do…