Your guide to activities and fun things to do with your preschoolers, toddlers and kids in kansas city, KS

All work and no play makes Mommy and Daddy crazy.

by Jenny Meade

May 11, 2009

Recently my husband and I came the conclusion that we're both behind the curve, on pretty much everything in our lives. We're both behind at our jobs. We're both behind at home. The house is a mess, the laundry sits on the floor in our bedroom separated by clean and dirty piles. Whereas we used to have the weekends to recover and catch up from the work week, we now need an extra day between Sunday and Monday in order to catch up from our weekends of soccer, baseball, soccer, swimming, and occasionally mowing the grass. (That which is seen by the neighbors inexorably gets done, which is why the laundry still sits on the bedroom floor.) It's just that time of year - so much to do, so little time. 

I think all parents go through this. I have to admit, before I had kids, I thought the hardest part would be doing the new mommy thing. All the books you read set you up for this - the constant crying, pooping, feeding and laundry cycle with variable sleep patterns thrown in for good measure is supposed to make you lose your mind, right?

Nobody tells you that is a walk in the park compared with driving and dropping off and picking up and feeding on the run and driving some more, and cleats and soccer balls and mitts and baseballs that get lodged under the seat where nobody can reach them. No one mentions the part about how all that seemingly endless laundry you did over and over to wash the spit-up out of those wee little rompers? That is NOTHING compared with big kid laundry loads of towels and sheets and ketchup stained T-shirts, and baseball pants and soccer socks and the clean and sterilized rubber mulch that constantly clogs up the lint filter in the dryer.  

Also? You have to actually parent them, not just rock them to sleep or stick a nipple in their mouth. Who knew.  

I am telling you, here and now: Babies? Babies are easy. Kids are hard. And the work is never-ending.

On Mother's Day, while I tended to some church commitments, my husband and the boys stayed home and played Monopoly.  The house was still a mess when I got home. There were dishes in the sink, the same piles of laundry on the bedroom floor, the same dog staring at his empty water dish and whining. But my family was having some quiet fun together. And I realized I missed it.  We need to do it more often. 

People, let yourself have some fun on the weekends, or wherever you can. The laundry can wait. Besides, after a while they figure out how to sniff their own underwear to see if it's clean, anyway.  Call it a Rite of Passage and let it go.