I’ve been thinking about laziness lately.
Or, more specifically, how quickly I use that word for myself.
There are dishes in the sink?
I’ve been lazy.
Laundry piled on the couch?
Lazy.
The homeschool table is covered in stuff, the floor needs swept, something needs wiped down, and somehow there are approximately 400 things sitting where they don’t belong?
Obviously, I’ve been lazy.
Except…have I?
The other day I took the boys outside to play.
Nothing exciting. They jumped on the trampoline. Made up some game that I’m still not entirely sure I understood. The baby watched the leaves blow in the wind like it was the greatest entertainment he’d ever been offered.
And I walked around taking pictures.
I took pictures of the trees changing colors. A bee on some flowers. The path through the woods. The clouds rolling in.
I was just…there.
And inside my house was a couch absolutely covered in laundry.
There were dishes waiting on me.
The homeschool table was a mess.
All of it needed to be done.
And none of it was getting done because I was outside.
I think sometimes I look at that and call it laziness when, really, my time was just required somewhere else.
That’s something I’m having to learn in this stage of life.
The things people need most from me right now seem to be:
A mom who is present.
A clean-ish house.
And food. Preferably the home-cooked variety.
Turns out, I cannot do all three at the same time.
Who knew?
I cannot sit outside and watch my kids play while simultaneously folding laundry on the couch, washing dishes at the sink, and standing over the stove making dinner.
There’s only one of me.
So something is almost always going to be waiting.
And I’m trying to stop treating everything that’s waiting as evidence that I’ve failed.
That doesn’t mean the dishes don’t matter.
They do.
Believe me, after my recent gnat situation, THE DISHES MATTER.
The laundry matters. Cleaning matters. Taking care of our home is part of taking care of the people who live in it.
But maybe it doesn’t always have to happen right now.
This is a lived-in house.
It’s not a staged museum.
There are no velvet ropes.
Nobody is walking around saying, “Hands to yourself!”
Well…actually, I have four boys. I say that one fairly often.
But there’s no “No flash photography!”
And there is DEFINITELY no “SHHHHHHHHH.”
People live here.
Little people live here.
They eat here. They learn here. They play here. They drag toys from one room to another and apparently remove clothing wherever the mood strikes.
And all of that creates work.
A lot of work.
But sometimes the very people creating the work also need me to stop doing it and come sit with them.
Or go outside.
Or watch whatever ridiculous game they’ve just invented.
And the work will still be there when I get back.
That’s the thing.
The laundry isn’t going anywhere.
I can fold it during naptime.
The dishes aren’t going anywhere.
I’ll wash them.
Dinner will get made.
Maybe it’ll be homemade. Maybe it’ll be hot dogs in the air fryer. Everybody will survive.
But this particular afternoon?
I can’t come back to it.
I’ve said it a million times, but I keep needing to remind myself:
The days are long, but their childhood is short.
These ordinary little moments are going to become precious memories someday.
So yes, I want to take care of my home.
I want clean clothes in the drawers and dishes out of the sink and dinner on the table.
But I also want to remember that sometimes “I haven’t done it yet” doesn’t mean “I’ve been lazy.”
Sometimes it just means my time was required somewhere else.
So I’ll do the laundry.
I’ll wash the dishes.
I’ll clean the house.
Just maybe not right now.
Right now, I’m going outside.
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