The To Do List

I have never been a devotee of the To Do List. I just hate the fact that nothing ever gets crossed off it. But I am a big fan of the cheat’s version - the Already Done List, where you add things you just did and tick them off.

It is very hard to make the transition from busy career woman (although I feel like a total fraud calling myself that, not sure why) to a “stay-at-home-mum”. Ugh, I hate that expression. There is something so slothful sounding about it. You just imagine some woman sitting around, daytime TV blaring, ironing board up, kids running riot around her feet as she does something like update her Twitter status or write a blog entry…

Or there’s the alternate reality where you might imagine some 1950s super-domestic mum who bakes cookies and healthy dinners and organises educational craft acitivities for her kids, which she then sits down and does WITH them.

Well, it’s really nothing like that. Either version. Except maybe the blogging bit.

I honestly don’t know where the time goes. When H is home (which is most of the time – he is only in daycare two days a week) it’s a constant cycle of feeding/cleaning. I don’t know where mums find the time to “prepare” delicious healthy meals, because somehow when its time to have lunch or dinner all of a sudden there is this urgency about it, like if I don’t serve up his meal in the next ten seconds I will miss my window and all hell will break loose. So all the food prep I do is reheating or making sandwiches, it’s really not that hard. But there is truly nothing messier in the entire world than a toddler eating. Especially mine.

So then there is the clean-up, and since my toddler likes to run around while he eats the cleaning stretches across multiple rooms. If I try to get too involved in the cleaning though, this is abruptly put to stop by H. He will even get in between the sink and me and push me away from it with impressive force. If he didn’t do it to my husband too, I know he’d think that I was making that up to get out of washing up.

Anyhoo the To Do list begins to form in my head on the night before a daycare day, when I start dreaming about how productive I’ll be while H is away. It usually looks a bit like this:

• Drop H at daycare
• Shower   - this seems odd since I love my showers and would love nothing more than to start every day with one like a normal person, but since I can’t do it while H is awake - I’m not sacrificing sleep for it! - they have been relegated to nighttimes. And often by the time I’ve gotten him into bed and sat down to eat my dinner I become a prisoner of the sofa until I realise it’s time to drag myself to bed and then it’s just too late.  So even on daycare days, by the time I’ve dressed and gone out and come home, it’s easy to forget that part of the routine that usually happens pre-dressing.
• Do the dishes – see passage above about trying to do them with H around.
• Vac and mop the floor – this it the one that often gets passed over in favour of:
• Do a couple of hours work – this is fine and usually happens first, as I can sit on my ass with a cuppa and a piece of toast and get right into it, checking Facebook periodically.  But once the actual work part is finished, the sitting on my ass part seems to continue indefinitely…
• Eat lunch – never fail to complete this task.
• Do some laundry – I often leave this to last as I think I can manage it with H around.
• Clean up before picking H up – seems to be optional.

Today’s list has the added activity of waxing my legs and underarms. The boredom plus pain factor of doing this makes it fairly unappealing. As you will see from a previous post, this is something that occurs quite rarely and I am currently writing this to avoid doing it.

Stay tuned faithful readers to see if by next time I am able to wear short-sleeves without shame!

NB here's an update. You will be pleased to note that I vacuumed, mopped AND waxed today. To reward myself I am now eating an entire packet of BBQ flavoured sakatas. The baby wanted them. It told me.