Relaxation

So we completed the gingerbread houses.  With minimal bickering and whining.  The girls did great too.

They tasted delicious, too.  Or at least the scraps did.  Can you guess which on is which girl's?

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the girls got along while doing these.  They shared the icing bags with the frosting in them and were generally pleasant about the whole ordeal.  I kinda want to make one for myself to decorate next year.

After they were done, I set to cleaning the house. Scrubbing floors, the bathroom walls, the counters in the kitchen.  Putting away all of my baking stuff that had overrun my counters.  Dusting.  Because that is what one does on one's first day of vacation, right?

Apparently not, according to my middle child.  Alexis questioned me as to why I felt the need to clean everything.  Why it was important to scrub the toilets, the walls, to get down on my hands and knees and scrub the floors.  Why I  had to do this in between decorating the houses and coloring with the girls and watching a movie.

(OK, I didn't actually watch the whole movie.  That almost never happens.  But I did sit down for a bit.)

I explained to her how it is very distressing to me to have a messy house.  How I don't like it when we have clutter.  How I really wasn't doing all that much.  How it was a lazy day.  I stayed in bed until almost 10, after all.

Alexis then looked at me and said, "Mom.  You have cleaned the kitchen, bathroom, and living room.  You threw clothes in the washer and dryer.  You cleaned the bathroom walls.  You put away all of the cookie stuff.  And you also decorated gingerbread houses, colored pictures, cleaned out the van, and helped me and Charlie get dressed.  How is that a lazy day?"

She has a point.  When did I stop recognizing what I did during a day?  When did having my self-sufficient girls allow me to lay in bed for a bit make me all of a sudden have a "lazy day?"  When did the idea of having to stop and actually, RELAX, become such an anxiety provoking idea anyways?  What am I trying to run away from?  And who the hell is telling me that I am not good enough if I am not constantly producing?

Tomorrow....tomorrow I am going to just chill.  Charlie had a cousin sleepover tonight.  Tomorrow, I will make them some cinnamon roll waffles.  I will play Angry Birds in bed.  I will drink a lot of coffee (wait, that's every day...) and stay in jammies until we have to leave for my sister's for Christmas Eve.  Hell, since the weather is closer to the actual time of Jesus's birth than to winter, I might even take the kids outside and go to the park with the dogs.  Don't worry; if we do that I will put on actual clothes vs my jammies. 

I took this time off from both jobs for a reason.  I need to refresh.  I need to reconnect with my family.  I'd better damn well use it.

But not until the house is clean.