Sleeping on the job

Having a two-year-old is amazing, but I feel like I need to be doing something all the time. All. The. Time. If I don't constantly pick up things around the house, it suddenly looks like a disaster zone. This can happen quickly. In the span of an hour it can look simultaneously like a house that's been lived in for decades and one that is half unpacked. Yesterday I spent Benjamin's naptime cleaning out the car and carseat instead of picking up the house a bit like I usually do. I was feeling really great about the way the car was looking when I walked into the house and saw that what I hadn't picked up seemed to have magically multiplied. By that time, Benjamin was waking so I didn't do anything about it.

Needless to say, by his naptime this afternoon it had multiplied to outrageous proportions. I just kept waiting for the governor to come by and declare it a state of emergency. Benjamin and I had spent the morning with friends at the zoo, shopping, at lunch, and we were both pretty tuckered by naptime. I have been making it a point when he goes down to read at least part of a children's book to keep my children's book blog from getting stuck in a rut of the same old books I know by heart. So despite the mess around me, I stretched out on the couch with Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder and read a chapter. But as Almanzo and his father hewed crossbeams for a bobsled, my eyes started to get heavier and heavier until I found myself dreaming weirdly of shopping at CVS for a bobsled and trying to use my coupons. Before I knew it, I had slept for close to an hour, Benjamin was waking up, and I still hadn't picked up the house.

It actuallydidn't take long to get it in some order once I popped a Toy Story dvd in for Benjamin and gave him a snack. I am constantly thankful for my Shark floorsweeper, the lifesaver of any mother of a toddler. But the whole chaotic house week got me thinking.

I think my spirit is a lot like my house. If I neglect it for even a day, it starts to get cluttered up with so much laundry and dust, stinky shoes, and crayon marks on the furniture. I start to feel overwhelmed, to dwell on the wrong things, to feel more and more inclined to sleep on the job. It is my job to fill my mind with whatever is good, pure, lovely, and praise-worthy. But if I'm too tired for a few nights and I go to sleep instead of doing my Bible study, or I spend several days reading a Jennifer Weiner book and NOT reading something uplifting, I start to feel cluttered and dusty. I forget the good and lovely things and I get grumpy and short tempered. You know, no matter how often you dust your shelves, there will always be more dust accumulating (that's why I hate dusting, by they way). Cleanliness doesn't last on its own but a mess does. Neatness doesn't grow without help but clutter does. It's the same with my mind and my spirit. The growly thoughts grow without much help. The lovely thoughts need to be polished and shined and scented with lemon every day.