As I've been texting and messaging with other shut-in friends across the country, I'm discovering that, among my friend group, there seems to be four categories of mamas in this Covid-19 crisis: Overwhelmed, Over-worked, Over-joyed and Over it.
The OVERWHELMED mama has transformed overnight from a lunch packer and drop-off line kisser to an instructor, homeschool teacher and professional manager of cooped-up, crazy children. She’s checking teacher emails like her friends are checking retailers for toilet paper trucks, and she feels like in 23.5 hours of attempting to present the information her kids’ school teachers present in six, she will never be able to get through all.the.things.
The OVER-WORKED mama is now playing parent and professional while creatively finding childcare solutions from babysitters who will also agree to administer education to her children OR working from home while managing Zoom calls and zombie children who can somehow focus for six hours on a school day but can’t seem to do anything but request more food now in her home. She’s the now work-from-home professional and the retail clerk and the grocery stocker and the healthcare employee and the toilet paper delivery driver who have become our heroes in this crisis and, with all the demands now on her plate, is just.plain.exhausted.
The OVER-JOYED mama is the one dancing in the streets. She’s the one who loves the kids and loves the crafts and loves all the quality time together. She couldn’t think of a bigger gift than unstructured time and margin, and her children are the ones now hand knitting socks for children’s hospitals and grinding their own wheat for homemade bread. She’s the one we love to hate because, while we’re still figuring out how to open a Google classroom, she’s already turned HER classroom into a one-room schoolhouse and leaped three grades ahead.
Her children are actually graduating at the end of the year.
And the OVER-it mama looks like this.
OVER. IT.
Because, although she may have started out as a mama in one of the other categories, she’s now checked all the boxes and done all the things and, although she fully embraced this corona-cation with loads of projects and high expectations for pure, unadulterated family time, reality kicked in and she and her people, after weeks bound to the home, are done cleaning and purging and weeding and raking and now need something productive to do so they don’t go insane.
If you fall into the first two categories, sista, stop reading RIGHT HERE. Close this window. Delete this email. Because YOU, sweet mama, don’t need any more links or ideas or lists or “shoulds.” You, rock star mama, are giving EVERYTHING you have to kiddos who are SO BLESSED to have you there. You don’t need more resources or tasks or advice.
As my Jenny Randle would say, “Shut that should up.”
You need more REST.
Because you are not loved and valued and treasured and precious for what you DO or how many projects you accomplish or how many math facts your kids know at the end of this year.
You are loved and valued and treasured and precious because you are an image bearer of a God who loves you madly, and you don’t have to do ONE SINGLE THING right now to earn or prove that love.
You rest right where you’re at, knowing all of us are so thankful for you and so blessed by you and are cheering you on from our places in our homes, and that He will equip you for everything you need and carry you all the way.
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” ~ Matthew 11:28-30
(Don’t know the Jesus who gives real rest, sweet friend? Check out this great resource that answers all your most common questions. Talk to a friend who knows Jesus. Or message me. I’d love to tell you all about the man who totally changed my life.)
If you fall in the Over-joyed category, congratulations! Way to choose joy, embrace the moment and use this unprecedented time in history to pour into the people and things that matter most! I am SO THANKFUL for the enthusiasm that emanates from you and reminds me when my superheroes start arguing about the last Cheerio left in the box why this time is a gift, one we get the opportunity and privilege of stewarding well.
You, too, should stop reading here. Because contentment is a gift from God, and tasks outside of what He has already given you could destroy that joy. Please go bust out your guitar and sing worship songs with your children while you pray for this sinner who might need to put herself in Mommy time out at any given time today.
But if you fall into the Over-it category, because you’ve cleaned out all the cobwebs and put together all the puzzles and you just realized that your elementary school is now a drive-through Covid-19 testing location and you are in all likelihood NOT actually going back to school this year, this list is for you.
Because as our team has finished in one week would normally take us one year, we’ve discovered that chores that normally feel tedious and arduous, when done at our own pace and on our own schedule with all the time in the world to complete them, are actually great family bonding activities and also great life teaching tools. And ultimately, completing tasks that help us later buys us that future time when things might not be so calm and quiet.
(No, I don’t know why God gave me this super annoying burning passion to list-make and organize or why it seems to be my only talent in this life, but it may as well serve someone besides the family I am completely irritating with it at this time.)
Need some meaningful projects you can do together that will help contribute to either the health, organization or smooth running of your home, either now or in the future? (Or at the very least, teach your children about how to operate in the real adult world?)
Try (or completely IGNORE!) some of these:
SANITIZATION PROJECTS:
The same day our schools closed for two weeks, Superhero 2 came down with Influenza A (which, in the midst of a world pandemic, felt like winning the patient lottery). Which meant, with all four children now bound to the house for weeks to come, we pulled out every sanitary and cleaning trick in the book to help prevent the spread inside our locked-down home.
10 days later, we are thanking Jesus alone that no other member of the family contracted it.
These small cleaning projects may or may not also help prevent the spread of infections of any kind within YOUR locked-down home.
· Deep clean the house, especially attending to hard surfaces that can keep viruses for days.
· Deep clean the washing machine and dryer using instructions in manual. They may get a lot of use in the coming weeks.
· Sanitize every light switch, door knob and handle especially well.
· Wash all sheets, pillow cases and blankets in the house.
· Wash all towels and hand towels in every room.
· Wash all book bags and lunch boxes on sanitary cycle in the washer. Sista, your school is now a drive-in testing location. Let’s be honest. You probably ain’t going back.
· Wash/sanitize all reusable bags that go to and from the grocery store after each use.
· Wash all car seat covers in all vehicles.
· Sanitize all hard surfaces, including steering wheels and radio buttons, in all vehicles.
· Place hand sanitizer in the cup holder of any vehicle that will be leaving the house in the coming weeks.
· Place tissues in each vehicle for drivers who will need to fill up on gas. Drivers can use a tissue or gloves instead of touching gas pumps directly.
· Vacuum and steam clean all vehicles. (Because our children haven’t left the house in more than a week, it’s actually STAYING clean, too! I simply sanitize in and sanitize out in the front seat.)
· Set up a sanitization station at the garage or entrance door to your home. At that station, place hand sanitizer, wipes and a laundry basket. Before any member of our house enters our home after heading to work (the military doesn’t stop because Covid-19 has set in) or a public grocery store, he or she strips down, places dirties in the basket and sanitizes before entering. This helps keep outside germs outside after we have sanitized everything from the inside out.
ORGANIZATION PROJECTS:
From a hobby organizer and lover of order and alphabetization, these are projects intended to help make life easier, faster, smoother or more efficient, either now or in the future.
· Purge the place. Check out The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, and KonMari the house. Like, the WHOLE house. (Because really, you have nothing but time!) If an object in your house doesn’t “spark joy,” send it to the purge pile. It might spark joy for someone else.
· While purging, put aside any object that simply needs repaired, repainted or repurposed. We found a chalkboard we were able to repaint and use in our new garage gym.
· Organize the junk drawer. Throw away the trash. Put everything else where it belongs.
· Organize the files. We spent the weekend going through the tax files, the important documents files, the school files. We re-organized everything so we could find it more easily, and we burned all the files we no longer needed. (Apparently taxes from 2013 are no longer necessities.)
· Create an organization system for schoolwork. Or use the system you already created to file all the papers, projects and report cards from the year for each child.
· Organize all books in the house and break them down into shelves for each reader. We’d forgotten about some of the most beloved series of the older boys and were able to reintroduce them this week to the youngers.
· Organize all game boxes/trunks/closets. Throw away games that are not playable or missing pieces. Put all loose items in the boxes where they belong. And then sort the games into those that could be used for homeschool lessons and those that are strictly for recreation time.
· Organize the craft bin/area/closet. Make it available and easy to reach for little hands to craft during this time.
· Organize the outdoor or camping gear. We cleaned, reorganized and replenished all the items we’d love to use when we get to venture into the Great Outdoors again. The matches and fire starters are ready, all the campfire pots and utensils are stocked up and ready to go. So when the military calls game on, we can simply take our kitchen camping gear box and our camping bedding box and just ROLL.
· Organize beach or pool gear. This will simultaneously provide the optimism you need that you will indeed get to enjoy such things at some point again in your life. Fill up the sunscreen, wash the towels, add the sunglasses, check all the bathing suits and goggles for proper fitting. So that when your people can hit the pool, you don’t have to waste any time doing so.
· Organize travel items. So you shelved all the suitcases you had busted out for that spring break vacation that is no longer happening. No better time than now to create a travel toiletries kit and clean and organize all your travel pillows and items so that they are ready to go when you can reschedule.
· Organize the garage. Because it essentially becomes the life dumpster of the entire house. Start a homemade car wash for all the bikes. Fix up all the broken tools. Reorganize all the drawers of misplaced screws and nuts and bolts. Even rearrange to provide a secluded outdoor place where your family can ride scooters during corona-cation. In our garage this week we created a section for Odyssey props (because this is the competition that will never cancel and will never end), a section for exercise (we rolled out yoga mats, an Alexa dot, an exercise ball, jump ropes, the few hand weights we own and a chalkboard we freshly painted to write down circuits we can all participate in together) and a section for building/creating/tooling.
· Organize the kids’ clothes and closets. Now is a great time to purge what they won’t or can’t wear and move up sizes. The boys weeded and purged their own holy socks, and some of them went through the Lonely Socks Box to match up the others. We also moved all four superheroes from winter to summer closets and packed away those coats we won’t need until next year.
· Create or organize a homeschool room, if applicable. See tips and tricks from my blog posts earlier this week about some creative ways to do that.
HOUSEHOLD PROJECTS:
· Clean out the fridge. Throw away all expired sauces and products. Reorganize so everything can be seen and used.
· Purge the pantry. If it’s older than your marriage, it can probably go.
· Defrost that old freezer.
· Stock the fridge with freezer meals you can use both for your family in quarantine or for others who may need them in this season.
· Touch up paint, or repaint a new room.
· Change the air filters while you actually remember that kind of thing needs to be done.
· Change the batteries in all the smoke alarms, if you haven’t done that since 1992.
· Rearrange the furniture you’ve been meaning to move.
· Weed the yard.
· Plant flowers.
· Plant a garden.
· Pick up litter or trash.
· Sharpen all knives in the kitchen.
· Sharpen all tools, axes, knives in the garage.
· Build something you’ve always meant to build while you have the time to do it.
· Make a list of everything in the house that needs repaired, including loose knobs and broken locks. Slowly tackle these as you have time or resources to do so.
· Make a list of all the appliances or devices you still don’t know how to work. Read or download the manuals for each and actually LEARN them.
So after you’ve read and sang and worshipped and played and crafted and gamed and done all the things with all the people and you’re just OVER-IT, you and your precious people can OVERCOME that we-can’t-sit-in-this-house-with-nothing-to-do-for-one-second-more hurdle TOGETHER in a useful and practical way that not only blesses your household but buys you precious time together when it might not be so abundant in the future.