You're about to read my confessions....

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Coming to Terms With "Motherhood OCD"

It is late at night and my whole family has been asleep for a good 3 1/2 hours while I've been awake doing my chores.


I am finished with them now, and it is 1:25am. The dishwasher is scrubbing away at the dishes we dirtied all day long, the dryer is drying some sheets my daughter bled on, and I have sprayed down all counter tops and tables in the house with disinfectant. I folded and hung all my husband's laundry and there's not a single dirty article of his clothing left. The house is straightened up. I have checked and re-checked on my sleeping children, making sure they're properly tucked in and that their rooms are neither too cold nor too hot. Outfits for all 3 of my children have been carefully selected and laid out, and the baby's diaper bag is packed and waiting near the front door.


Now, to most of you this probably sounds like I'm a bit "over prepared." Like I've been doing things that could easily be done in the morning after I get a good night's sleep. It probably even sounds like I'm getting ready for some special day for which I need to be ready for, no matter what the day throws at me. The reality? This is my routine every single night. It's normal for me, and it will probably continue to be my "normal." However, just a few moments ago as I finally began to pull down my covers and climb into bed, the thought occured to me that all my shoes were messed up earlier in the week while my little girls played dress up. As I opened my closet to begin the straightening up, I stopped. "It is past 1am," I thought "and I am about to line up my shoes that no one sees but myself. Obsessive compulsive disorder, perhaps?" Probably. I sat and thought, just for a moment, about how silly not only this was, but also how silly it is that I pay attention to such ridiculous details. No one cares that my girls have perfectly neat outfits and adorable hair all the time. No one notices if my house's scent changes each week. And I'm sure no one notices that the dishes in my cupboard are stacked by color, niceness, and how frequently they're used. Of the contents in my diaper bag, it's probably not very likely that I'll need 3 different sizes of Ziplock bag, 4 sizes of safety pins, and 3 extra outfits of different warmth variety for my son. Now, there probably aren't many of you who are as bad at this as I am (heaven, help me!) but there probably are several of you who, like me, need to let go of some of the less important things. Motherhood is hard enough as it is without us making that much more to worry about. It's more important to get my much needed Mommy Sleep than it is for me to make sure all the books on my living room book shelf are lined up correctly.


So here it is, now 1:46am, and I am trying my hardest to restrain myself from sitting down on my floor and reorganizing those darn shoes to how they should be. I'm blogging about how crazy I am, in an attempt to convince myself to not go in and do something so pointless and time consuming. Did it work??


*Sigh* Maybe I should be on some sort of "Mommy OCD" medication!
~Karyn

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