MyColdCoffee.com"I don’t have a problem with caffeine. I have a problem without caffeine!" -Author Unknown

The coffee is not working anymore!  My house is a wreck as usual, the laundry is piled up as usual, the kids are fussy as usual, and they aren’t sleeping as usual!  You’d think I’d be use to the insanity but instead I just feel overwhelmed.  That is such a powerful word, isn’t it?  Overwhelmed.  Let’s see what good ol’ Mr. Webster has to say about the word.

“Entry Word: overwhelm

Function: verb

Meaning: 1 to subject to incapacitating emotional or mental stress <just the thought of how much work there is to do overwhelms me>

Synonyms carry away, crush, devastate, floor, oppress, overcome, overmaster, overpower, prostrate, snow under, swamp, whelm

Related Words deluge, drown; confute, defeat, refute; demoralize, distress, disturb, rock, shatter, stagger, unman, unnerve, upset

2 to cover or become filled with a flood <that spring the massive runoff from melting snows overwhelmed the valley> — see flood”

That is a powerful definition and pretty much exactly what I’m feeling!  Wow, ‘incapacitating emotional or mental stress’!  Nice match!  Didn’t really know it was going to be hard raising children!  They are these helpless individuals that need you for guidance in all aspects of their little lives.  They look to you for the answers to all their questions, the big and small ones.

As parents, we tend to forget that our kids look at how we handle every situation in our lives.  They see how we react to certain problems and they start imitating our reactions!  We are the ultimate teachers in our children’s lives.  We are responsible for helping them express and control their feelings in a positive manner.  We are their role model, want it or not, it’s what we are to them.

I guess that’s why I feel so overwhelmed.  I always question myself as a mother, whether I made the right decisions, did I say the right thing, did I pay enough attention, and did I do something wrong?  I think I am the hardest person on myself and I need to keep in mind that all parents make mistakes!  That’s how we become better…learning from those mistakes and leaving them in the past! Maybe once I put my own words into action I won’t be so overwhelmed!

The number one house chore I absolutely despise is laundry!  It is never ending in this house.  No matter what I do, I cannot keep ahead of the dirty clothes!  It’s like someone takes an article of clothing off and it multiplies by three!  It drives me nuts. There are days when I wish I could be Mary Poppins and snap my fingers and the laundry would all be finished with a spoon full of sugar!

The biggest problem I have with laundry is the amount, but what really bugs me the most is the socks vanishing into sock land!  We all take two socks off our feet, but somewhere between us taking them off and them coming out of the dryer…there is always a few missing pairs!  I have an entire drawer in each of our rooms that is devoted solely to incomplete pairs of socks!  Now, that’s crazy!

None of the members of the house really understands the laundry process.  All they know is they wear it, take it off, and it magically appears back in the closet or drawers.  They don’t understand the sorting, the washing and washing, the drying, the folding, the putting away, the hanging up, the sock dilemma.  All the time involved in the actual process!  Oh well, they will not understand it until they are responsible for their own laundry.  Now, that’s a great idea!  If only I could trust my two year old with the washing machine!  Oh, I can see the mess now!

No, this is one job I have to suck it up and get it done.  I have to realize that the socks are happier in sock land, and the mountain of dirty clothes will only go away when the kids go off to college, and I will never be anything close to Mary Poppins!  “Snap, Snap”, nope still doesn’t work!