Self Diagnosis, or The unavoidable jumble of things

I may be sick. Here are my symptoms.

• I'm tired, and even if I want to take a nap, and my husband tells me to take a nap, I don't. I know if I lay down, I will lie there thinking of the dust accumulating on the bookshelves, the weeds in the flower garden, the piles of junk mail that need sorting. The kids that seem to think they need attention.
• I wake up in the early morning to feed the baby, and I can't go back to sleep. I lie awake, thinking of things. Things that don't matter.
• I start cleaning up after a meal, and decide to take the dirty towels down to the laundry room. Once in the basement, I see I have left four (four!) pairs of my shoes down there. I gather them up, carry them to my bedroom, and put them in the closet. Then I notice that somehow Nathan's bath toys are sitting on my dresser, so I take them back to the tub. Repeat with variations on a theme, for about an hour. End result, my house is cleaner in very small, very unnoticeable ways, without a single room looking like I just spent an hour cleaning. I have spent the entire time flitting around doing small tasks without getting anything actually done.
• I have to make lists so I can remember what I'm supposed to be doing. If I can get the satisfaction of crossing it off a list, it's a lot more likely to get done.

So what do you think? I think I have a common form of multitaskitis, also known as mom syndrome.

***

I wrote the above a while ago, and then saved the post to finish later. And good thing. I've been doing better at the multitaskitis, and with actually getting things done. I think it's because I've begun mothering myself by giving myself chores: Monday laundry, Tuesday mop the kitchen, Wednesday bathroom....Now I just need to give myself consequences for not doing my chores.

But my house is still cluttery. I can't get away from clutter, it seems. It's in my blood (anyone seen my grandma's house?). I'm just not that organized. I think it's why I dislike knickknacks so much (although I still have a few). I love this quote from Thoreau: "I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust" (Walden). I'd much rather spend my little free time reading a book than dusting my belongings.

But with kids, I can't get away from the clutter. They need toys, and they need all the toys to be spread through the house all the time: four cars in the kitchen cabinet, a fire truck in mom and dad's bed, books in the laundry hamper. All of these things have happened in the last week. Every time I clean it's like a treasure hunt.

So I might as well embrace it. The other day Nathan had a good ten minutes walking around with a reusable grocery bag on his head. He walked around saying "green ghost." Ten minutes of fun that wouldn't have been had if I had put the bag away on Saturday, when it was last used. Embrace the clutter that encourages my child to use his imagination. That's a good thing, right?