A Mom's To-Do List

I have a to-do list that I add to every day.
I am sure you do too.
Maybe you write it down, maybe it's in your head.
Mine is typed, saved on a Word-type document that is titled "To-Do".
Usually it includes items that I hope to complete that month,
but I try to tell myself that one very productive day I might bang them all out.
Unlikely. But I'm an optimist.

My “Ideal” TO-DO list today looks like this:
1. Fold laundry
2. Schedule time to view properties with R & J
3. Schedule time to view rentals with C
4. Do socks
5. Figure out what to make for dinner/make it.
6. Finish filing papers in office
7. Put old coffee pot, bowl and old toys on Freecycle
8. Clean kitchen counters
9. Swiffer
10. Get paper file thingie for Samantha’s desk
11. Buy new sheets for our bed
12. Clean out the car
13. Vacuum the car (yes, I like to make cleaning and vacuuming the car 2 things so that I feel
good if I even at least get ONE of those things done!!! OK! It's all psychological!)
14. Check on credit for Normandy house

Getting all of these items done would make me feel like I had the most productive day on the planet. What, you ask, is preventing me from accomplishing these 14 items?? They sure seem that they would not take too long and I could potentially accomplish them in the 3 hour period that Samantha, Sacha and Adam are in school, yes??

Well, that would be possible....if it were not for the OTHER To-Do list. THIS TO-DO list is NOT written down. It is in my head, and it is basically, basic things that need to be done, that I would feel silly writing down. These things absolutely need to get done, and prevent the “real” to-do list from getting more than 1-2 items knocked off it per day/week/month. I sometimes want to write down this TO-DO list, just so that I can remind myself of what I am doing all day that I am not able to get to the "REAL" to-do list. Today, I will write it down, so that I can see for myself, and so that you can see what it would look like:

Marisa's “BASIC” To-Do List
1. Sleep. (6 months of interrupted sleep with a new baby leave me tired and dying for more sleep every day. Even just an hour or two of sleep would make a world of difference.) This cannot happen, however, if the baby does not take a nap, or if her nap does not happen when the kids are in school. If the baby falls asleep, and I don't have to jet to pick up a child from school, I curl right up with her and sleep 5, 10, 20, 70 minutes, whatever time allows, to try to re-charge myself.

2. Eat. (this needs to happen to make milk for the baby. However, carrying the baby in one arm, and eating with the other, or finding food to make to eat, takes about 20 times longer than it would for a normal person. Also, I need to eat a lot, and constantly, to keep up with the milk production this hungry baby requires!)

3. Drink. (Again, need to do this to make milk for the baby, and also because I am thirsty. Is it crazy that I am writing this one down? It seems like it might be right??? Well, consider this- I am finally getting to one of my "real" to-do list tasks- say....folding laundry, while simultaneously entertaining the baby on the floor. Getting hydrated requires getting up, with baby, and getting water, again and again, from the kitchen, thus interupting any activity I was doing (holding baby, feeding baby, laundry, etc))
Maybe the baby's not so happy when I put her back down from getting water, or maybe she's mad I left her to GET water, so then I have to stop folding laundry and feed her, or change her, or just hold her, and stop laundry, altogether. See??? Drink does deserve one!

4. Pee. (These seem so basic, eh?? Not so easy!) Because the universe would have it that whenever I need to pee, the baby needs to be held, or is crying, or needs to eat, it is rare that I get the opportunity to go pee without the sound of a hysterically crying baby in the background. And if I do go, I have to immediately pick her up, and nurse her to calm her down, thus interrupting anything else that I could have been doing...ie. laundry, dinner prep, online property search...

5. Feed the baby. As in nurse the baby. She is just starting food, but her feedings consist 99% of my nursing her still. This is absolutely my favorite thing in the universe....however....when she is sick (as she has been since Thanksgiving, with one cold after another) she needs to eat every 20-30 minutes because she is congested and gets frustrated with nursing with a stuffy nose, and she is a hungry, growing baby. I treasure nothing more than my time spent nursing her, holding her little hand and staring at her beatiful eyes and hair, however, feeding the baby tends to cut into the above “real” to-do list big time.

6. Carry the baby. Again--especially because she is sick, Cecilia wants to be held, or she cries. I can try to put the Ergo on, and carry her around, and this works, while I prep dinner, make phone calls, but as soon as you have to complete #4 above (pee) the Ergo comes off, Cecilia goes in the crib, and we are back to #5 again (feeding)...and so it goes.

It is so very hard to explain, at the end of a long day, why a Mom like me is so tired. I look at my to-do list, and so little is usually crossed off of it. The pile of laundry at the foot of the bed grows (as I swore it never would when I was a child and my parents’ pile of laundry could swallow a couch), the mad hunt for socks continues every morning, and I watch the paper pile grow day by day because I don’t have an opportunity to put it away/file it. By the time the kids get home from school and we’re doing homework, dinner, etc, the day flies by, and the to-do list is forgotten altogether. If I cannot sometimes even complete the “basic” to-do list, how on God’s green earth do I expect the “ideal” to-do list to even get touched??? Forget returning a friends’ phone call, or even calling my Mom. (Sorry Mom, you know I love you) Thank God for text, or people would have thought the earth swallowed me whole once I hit 3 and 4 kids...

I imagine that one day, I will have time to pee and fold the laundry and gasp...even IRON!!! (which I love, it is ever so gratifying to me, I would iron every napkin & pillowcase and shirt with a collar, if I could...).....but I don’t know when that day will be.

For now, I am TRYING, very hard, to not obsess about my “real” or “essential” to-do lists, to be as easy on myself as I can, and to allow my former list-obsessed self to hide in the closet for a few years and let my Mom-self survive, soak up the love and get done as much as possible.... while still enjoying her kids.


(Sometimes it's better to sit on the laundry pile and have a tickle-fest than to actually fold clothes)


(We should be more like kids----enjoying life (ie, toys) in the midst of the chaos (ie. messy living room)- sometimes I would like to say to heck with the to-do list, but for now, I'll just say......it'll all get done in due time...)