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barrymissy
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| Posted: Sept 08 2010 at 3:04pm | IP Logged
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I'm overwhelmed. I need some order and sanity in my life.
Enrolled with Seton and have a 5th, 3rd and 1st grader.
Also have a 3yo, 14 month old and a preemie 5 week old.
Hanging over my head is also trying to get the house on the market and sell before income drops by 25%. The drop will happen in small incremints, the first drop in October. We have known about the drop for awhile and our original goal was to be moved into a smaller payment house by October. Not happening now of course.
I'm not naturally organized. Which is why it is taking so long to get the house on the market. Add homeschooling (second year for us, last year we used MODG), a baby just starting to toddle around, a hyper 3 year old and a newborn who needs to nurse/be held constantly, and that leaves very little time for housework. Let alone painting/fixing up to sell. My energy is completely gone after getting the kids to finish their lessons, and some days I nap, others I rest. There is so much to do I just sit and do nothing. I have motivation for school, but just enough to get by.
What are some ways I can cope better? I have a moby wrap, but my baby is so little still (he is up to 5lbs, 3oz now), that i haven't found it very comfortable. but he wants to be held all the time. when i do manage to get him to sleep in the swing or bouncer, the 14 month old sees my arms free and clings to me. not to mention, i can't really let her wander around with baby within her reach. I feel so bad for dh, evenings and weekends are just house catch up and cooking. school is creating such a attitude issue with the older ones that it is taking them well into the afternoon to finish, so i don't even feel like i can delegate housework to them.
ugh. sorry for venting. today has been tough. 14 month old has a high fever, and we were just at the doctor, with 3 other sick kids, yesterday. of course her fever waits until the day after. why not. so we have school work to catch up on from being at the doctor yesterday on top of a sick baby. aaggghhhrrr! is it bedtime yet?? lol.
thanks for any thoughts/prayers!!
Missy
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JennGM
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| Posted: Sept 08 2010 at 3:28pm | IP Logged
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Ah, Missy. Big hugs and lots of prayers your way.
If I were in this situation, I'd readjust the school schedule a bit and take some time off to get things done and allow yourself to rest and your children to get better. You have a lot of plates spinning right now.
I'm not sure how Seton works, but if you don't want to postpone school for a bit, can you just do some minimum work, like the 3 Rs and put everything else off? Make science a nature time, with a blanket in the backyard with cooler weather and just relax.
Some books on tape, some educational videos (David Macauley, Liberty's Kids, Planet Earth, Signing Time, Bill Nye), audio by Jim Weiss, puzzles, math games...different things that are educational so your children are doing something, but require less of your time so you can prepare the house.
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Sept 08 2010 at 6:27pm | IP Logged
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JennGM wrote:
Ah, Missy. Big hugs and lots of prayers your way.
If I were in this situation, I'd readjust the school schedule a bit and take some time off to get things done and allow yourself to rest and your children to get better. You have a lot of plates spinning right now. |
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I totally agree and this would be my advice as well. Remove some variables!!! It's a case of priorities!
* Sit down with your husband - WHAT IS THE PRIORITY? It sounds like your house needs to be readied to go on the market quickly and that might be the PRIORITY!!! That means everything else needs to line up behind it. This means big kids watch littles, you wear baby, and you and your husband work on a list that all of you work through together as quickly as possible.
* Make some priority lists - what HAS TO BE DONE???
what WOULD BE GREAT IF IT GOT DONE???
what is JUST ICING ON THE CAKE??? (I got the following idea from Willa I think...) Create a private blog for composing your lists. I think it could be an effective way for husband and wife to have one place to go that is always accessible for recording master lists, summaries of what got done, extra "we just thought of this" lists. They're all in the same place! When the house is upside down...it could be a VERY GOOD thing that these lists live on a private blog space...rather than a piece of paper buried under mountains of boxes and blankets. I really liked the idea when I heard of it!
* Time for MAJOR & BRUTAL decluttering and staging effort!!! Rent a storage space!! It's a GREAT TOOL when trying to sell! Work one room at a time!. This reduces the feeling of EVERYTHING being so overwhelming! Pick a room and get started. Some items you can just give away! Great - bag 'em up and set it aside. Some items, you'll want to keep but they aren't necessary for everyday life...you could live without them temporarily and you might consider packing up some of that to help declutter. Trust me, you can live without a lot! You'll need some tools:*** Boxes to pack in
*** Newspapers/packing materials
*** Sharpie/permanent markers for CLEARLY LABELING BOXES
* Staging the house - what stays and what goes in preparation for a speedy sell?? Some factors are out of our control - economy, location, etc. Other factors we can control and act on to assist the sale of our home - setting pricing reasonably, and staging the home to be as pleasing and neutral to potential buyers as possible!! I was so nervous when we were preparing to stage our home - it was far from "magazine cover worthy" and we had kid-stuff everywhere, but that's not what folks are looking for...they're looking for clean, and they want to see wallspace and floorspace UNCOVERED AND UNCLUTTERED so that the space seems bigger and they can envision their stuff there. Imagine that your family is going on an extended camping trip. You're only going to keep those items you'd need for your camping trip - some clothes, hygiene items, medical needs, cooking needs, a few toys...a VERY few toys. Those are the practical things that stay in your house. Keep just enough furniture so that rooms are defined and have a purpose - couch in living room, table in kitchen, etc. Remove EVERYTHING EXTRA!!!! (I feel like an HGTV commercial!  )
* Sit down with your husband and have him help you decide what is a reasonable amount of time to work on preparing the house for selling and what is a reasonable amount of time for you to tend to other tasks. Husbands have a great way of helping with these kinds of specifics because we can become easily overwhelmed in the day-to-day stuff of it all.
* School time - If it were me...I'd drop it totally while getting ready for this move. It's a temporary thing and it allows me to focus on the priority. If you feel you HAVE TO DO SOMETHING...perhaps you could devote 1 - 2 hours each morning to school following some of Jenn's suggestions. Other ideas -
*** one group read aloud for history (covers all kids - focus on the same time period for all)
*** math time (work on basics - elementary kids really need to solidify order of operations, quiz each child in order of operations at their grade level, add in some simple math games, card games.)
*** move everyone to Baltimore Catechism #1 for simple q&a and informal discussions for a bit (just an idea, you might prefer a different book, but I find it is a great spine for my religion studies, and when I have to peel back layers, my religion peels right back to learning the Baltimore Catechism).
*** Add in audio books - as Jenn suggests, there are great ones for history and literature.
*** Nature study for science on one day of the week.
*** Assigned independent reading (from history living books) for your independent readers.
*** Whether you school during this time or not...use a bin or canvas bags to keep and contain only needed school items. EVERYTHING else goes to storage. If this is just your second year homeschooling, you probably don't have too much built up so this shouldn't be too big a deal. It will be helpful for you though once the house is in order and on the market. You'll need to vacate during showings...keep your school effort & supplies tidy, simple, and PORTABLE!!! (Another note from experience - homeschool books and boxes should be THE LAST ITEMS loaded into the storage unit (seasonal clothes should be right next to them up front)! This way...if you're in the position of selling/living-without for longer than expected, you'll be able to easily get to those resources!) (I know my list above might contradict/differ from your Seton plans. I'm only speaking from my experiences which are using primarily living books in a self-designed curriculum...not necessarily advocating one approach over another...just saying that this is what I'd likely do to remove stress variables. If you're working with Seton, I'd call their support and brainstorm ways to make this work with their plans!!! The idea is you have a very finite amount of time to do "formal schoolwork" for a temporary amount of time - work within that time reality.)
This is temporary. You're covering basics while you focus on the priority...which I'm guessing needs to be...
* House prep - This can be done!!!! Break it down into chewable, bite-size portions!!! I really felt less overwhelmed when I allowed myself to focus on ONE ROOM AT A TIME! My dh would help keep me focused. We'd talk over coffee in the mornings and he'd say...if you can get these cabinets sorted and unloaded, when I get home, we can tackle "x", "y" and "z" bigger things. We can shoot for a reasonable goal of conquering this room in "x" days!!!! As we would pack up/declutter a room and have piles of boxes (in the garage or some other designated loading zone), my husband would make regular trips to the storage facility or Goodwill if we were giving it away.
* LABEL BOXES VERY CLEARLY!!!!!! -- Label: room & contents in the same place on all boxes. In other words, label each box in the upper right corner of a panel...you can label the top of the box, but if you're looking in a storage facility packed sky high...you'll see the sides of the boxes more easily than the tops.
* Allow yourself a little luxury indulgence as a reward for accomplishing a room - a private bath in the evening, a haircut you've been putting off, a special beverage or snack/meal.
* Some of your biggest help for the littles (14 month old & 3 yo) will be your biggers (5th, 3rd, 1st grader)!!!! This is why I said I'd stop school entirely while working this process...have your biggers watch/read to/entertain the littles so you can work. The preemie is a ?? for me. I'm assuming wearing the preemie is the best thing for the precious wee one. It's what I'd do if I had an infant. My own pref for wearing infants is the Moby, but if you're having trouble with that maybe you could start a brand new thread specifically asking for help brainstorming comfortable carriers for preemies. The collective baby-wearing wisdom here is pretty immense.
* Painting and other maintenance punch items go on one of your master lists. You can either include them as part of a *one-room-at-a-time* approach and once you're done decluttering and simplifying you paint/repair, or just work on those after the *whole-house* declutter. Either way, it will be easier to address issues once the house is brutally decluttered. The house will also be FAR EASIER to manage. Sure, you'll miss your gazillion tupperware cups, and the fleets of sheets, but really, simplifying for our move taught me HUGE LESSONS in the amounts of things I could live without and continues to serve as a benchmark for me.
* Once the house is decluttered and purged, you'll have to set aside specific times of the day to complete tidy-time. We call these "quick tidy" times here and after I learned to do this to prep for our move they stayed with our daily routine because it helped me SO MUCH! The idea is just that EVERYONE gets involved and tidies spaces a couple of times a day...spend 15 minutes and tidy twice a day and the house will stay clean because there is less in it, and because you're frequently tidying. This is important because a realtor call to show the house could come at any time and you have to vacate a CLEAN house. You don't have to be this crazy unless you REALLY NEED TO SELL. I'm going on what you said in your post, and it sounds like you guys really need to sell and get into something more affordable for your fam!!! Brainstorm a list for yourself for that *vacate-the-home-in-the-middle-of-the-day* time too...5th grader grabs snacks and drinks...3rd grader grabs school bags...1st grader grabs diaper bag...you grab toddler and littlest...strap in and roll praying that *these* are the right buyers!
I sure hope some of this helps, Missy! I'll be praying that with St. Joseph's help, you and your husband can brainstorm some workable and reasonable goals and lists that break this down into less overwhelming chunks for you!
Big  for you right now!!! Having said ALL OF THAT ABOVE I realize I needed to say be gentle on yourself - you're 5 weeks pospartum!!! Sheesh...I should have re-read your post and said that first! I think the ideas here can still stand as long as you are REALISTIC about what you can do 5 weeks postpartum...in fact, you and your husband may decide to wait until 8 weeks or more postpartum for a your effort...the point is...your timing and pace is determined by you and your husband. The ideas listed are for you to work with within your own circumstances! A totally wiped-out-burned-out-stretched-too-thin mommy is no good for anyone!
More and prayers, Missy!!! Sure hope there's something helpful here!
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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Aagot
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| Posted: Sept 08 2010 at 9:02pm | IP Logged
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Jen has hit everything! One suggestion is to get a storage unit (Like Jen said) but have it dropped off in front of your house. You can load as you pack and then it gets hauled off to the storage place and hauled back when you find a new house.
God Bless,
Aagot
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Kathryn
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| Posted: Sept 09 2010 at 11:48am | IP Logged
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No advice, Missy, but just to say hugs and prayers for you. Your life sounds really overwhelming right now. I didn't even read Jen's whole post but I know she always has such great advice. If you can follow some of that, I'm sure it will help you feel better about everything.
We did Seton last year (our 1st year) for grades 5th and 3rd and I found that in and of itself very overwhelming and I only had a 2 yr old to contend with! If you're trying to have your kiddos complete everything in the lesson plans and it's stressing everyone out, I would suggest reading, math and religion and dropping everything else.
And yep, one of those Pods thing delivered to the house would be a great way to declutter and get the house ready to sell and show.
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(dd 16, ds 15, dd 8, dd 5)
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Servant2theKing
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| Posted: Sept 09 2010 at 12:33pm | IP Logged
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I echo backing off on studies, purging as much as possible and using a storage pod. If you have access to a camper or RV (perhaps borrowing from family or friends) it can be a real lifesaver to camp out in your own yard with dc while dh works on projects to get your house ready for sale, to keep your home "show-ready", or later during showings of your house. We did this and it made things dramatically easier. Visits to a laundromat can also save valuable time and cut down on laundry accumulation. Something that normally takes hours throughout the week at home takes less than two hours. These ideas might not work for you, but just thought I'd share what worked for us, just in case they might be helpful.
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JaysFamily
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| Posted: Sept 09 2010 at 2:24pm | IP Logged
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I had a preemie and know how hard it is to care for them once they're home. I cannot imagine how much more difficult it is with so many other things on your shoulders at the same time! The Moby wrap will become more comfortable as you break it in, and once Baby fits in it a little better, which will be around 7 lbs.
I'll agree with everyone else. I would at least ditch the curriculum for now, and then use the housework and maintenance as problem-solving and life skills education opportunities. It's okay for children to see that there are different types of work that make the world go around! Even businesses will sometimes push aside a project in order to complete a more urgent and sudden project or need.
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Angie Mc
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| Posted: Sept 09 2010 at 4:50pm | IP Logged
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God bless you, Missy and every mama who is nodding with empathy as she reads your words. Poor dear! and here is a big for you today.
I find it absolutely inhumane to expect myself or any woman to do "school" for hours a day when there are higher priorities pressing and demanding our time. There are only 24 hours in a day. If we spend inordinate hours on "school" or worrying about school...especially school that holds us accountable to an outside and arbitrary standard...we can't put those hours toward *our* highest needs.
Not everyone is blessed with the challenges of selling a home...moving...loss of income...many littles...premature baby...illness..home education...and more. Those of us who are, or have been, know that we need to live differently than the norm. We need to find our faith, hope, and love in *our* unique situation.
Missy, I will pray for you during this time of trial. God loves you and your family soooooooooooo much! He has blessed you with six amazing gifts in your children! Please do come here for practical helps and anytime you need sympathy or prayers. I'm cheering for ya!
Love,
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Angie Mc
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VanessaVH
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| Posted: Oct 29 2010 at 5:55pm | IP Logged
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(((((((((Big Hugs)))))))))
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GraceandCoffee
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| Posted: Dec 14 2010 at 9:58am | IP Logged
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Wow, this is one helpful post, Mackfam. :D I have just gone through this in September, and our house is still for sale. And I have recently started getting into my packed away stuff. I want to get some stuff out like books and toys. But I guess I'll have to swap some stuff instead of unpacking. Nice concise list of reminders. Thank you!
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Mackfam
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| Posted: Dec 14 2010 at 10:07am | IP Logged
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GraceandCoffee wrote:
| Wow, this is one helpful post, Mackfam. |
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I had to come back to this thread to see what it was about to say thank you for the kind words! Ahhhh!!! Moving time!!!
You're so welcome, GraceandCoffee! and prayers for your during this time of transition
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Jen Mackintosh
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Help! -big vent...
