The part of me that cares

Being a mother of 5, in order to maintain harmony in my home, I have made the decision to stuff the part of me that cares about clutter and filth into a remote part of my psyche.  Yes, it is still there, waiting to be summoned again when the kids start leaving home, but most of the time, it is forced under lock and key so that I don't go insane and yell and scream at them all day everyday, because believe me, I really could if I let myself.  Every once in a while though, I can feel the part of me that cares, welling up inside me, inching ever so inconspicuously to the forefront when it sees things like this:

Many, many corners of my house look like this.

The inside of a certain child's door, colored with paint chips from
throwing toys at it during temper tantrums.

The same certain child's wall after a particularly bad temper tantrum.

My kitchen on a Monday morning.  

Typical laundry room mess.

It reminded me of this t-shirt that my sister Kristen used to have that said this:

HAHAHA!  Now I don't really mean that my kids have killed the part of me that cares, but just that to maintain a home that is enjoyable and inviting to be in, I have to choose to value the peace, over the tension of always having it clean.

Sometimes, I see all these things at once--the damage to the house, the sticky floors, the clutter, etc. and I start to feel frantic.  It's not that we don't clean, because anyone that knows us well, knows we make our kids WORK.  It's just that the nature of the amount of people that live in our home and that I try to see each moment as a teaching moment, not a mom-losing-it type of moment, leads to our house looking like this.  Our house is really clean all day Saturday, but by Monday morning, it looks like a tornado hit it.  When I start to feel desperate, like I might blow any minute, I either clean it, have the kids clean it, or just sit there overwhelmed and do nothing.  This time however, I thought, "Since the rest of the house is destroyed, I'll do a house project and maybe that will make me feel better!"  So I decided to paint Christian's and Madison's bedrooms.

In Christian's room, we painted a chalkboard wall so he could do artwork and
have fun with it.

This is how I found it today--with some sort of giant equation on it.

Madison wanted a beach room and wanted it bright TEAL.  I am sure it will have
to be repainted sooner than later, but for now it is totally her and she loves it.

So I guess painting the kids' rooms, temporarily satisfied that stifled part of me that cares about my beautiful house . . . for now.

On a different note, here is a picture of me and my 5 precious peanuts on Mother's Day:

And here is a picture of me and my sister Kristen at our recent bike race.  I wish I had one with my Dad in it too, dang it!

And here is a picture of Christian that his friends posted to facebook of him getting ready to dissect a pig fetus, ewwww!  Of course his group was all girls . . .

And lastly, a note I found on Christian's bed from Madison on his birthday.  Sooo sweet!  So nice to know they like each other!