Do I Do The Laundry Or Play With My Son?

I know this will sound silly, but I figured it out yesterday. Do I do the laundry? Do I play with my son? The answer very simply is, yes. Lately I have been feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, guilty. I work over fifty hours per week, the house is a wreck, and I feel like I'm missing things with my son. I don't have a choice about work; maybe I can take some time off next month, I can make it through yet another ten hour day. The house is what's really making me crazy. I feel guilty about working so much that on my days off all I want to do is hold him, meaning nothing else gets done. The kitchen is dirty, I don't have the time or the energy to cook, I haven't seen the dining room table in ages, I need to clean the bathrooms, I won't even mention the floors, and the laundry, I don't even want to think about it. Now that dad is working again there seems to be barely enough hours in the day for us to say, “hi, how was your day?” before going to bed. I don't know what we would do if he didn't sleep through the night.

Yesterday I decided I couldn't take it anymore so I started rounding up the laundry and dove in. I would not do just enough to get through, I would DO the laundry. I started with the towels but came across a bit of a problem. They took nearly three hours to dry. It seems that the load was just large enough to nudge the door open and stop the drier. Naturally I didn't notice until I went in to swap the laundry and they were still sopping wet. After having the door bounced open just enough to stop the cycle several more times I decided it best to just stay in the laundry room. I scooped up my bundle of joy, cleared a spot on the folding and started folding the piles of already clean, old laundry. A couple of slobbery socks, a gnawed upon hanger, and a few giggles later I had the folding that had been piling up for weeks and the drier cycle done. It may take more time to get simple household chores done with my little distraction “helping,” but at least they are getting done. I no longer have to decide between him and the laundry.