Little Bits ...

This is how I feel like most of my tasks are accomplished - I do a little here, a little there. It seems I'm always trying to finish things in between lots of interruptions, distractions, or getting side-tracked.
And mostly that's okay. I feel like I am a wife/mom first and the cleaner, cooker, baker, laundry-doer, sewer, knitter, reading secondly .... however, some days I just really crave the time and ability to start something and completely finish it.
Truly, I clean a lot each and every day, but my entire house is never "cleaned" at the same time. For instance, yesterday I vacuumed half the downstairs and today I got the other half. Now, my house isn't that big and certainly doing the entire first floor wouldn't be hard. But we have to pick up everything from the floor. And my son's favorite thing to do these days is dump back everywhere. Boxes of train tracks, legos, blocks, puzzle pieces, movies - they are everywhere. I have him "help" pick-up as much as possible. But frankly he's slow and easily distracted. If I can get him to pick up a handful, that's a great achievement.
We don't have a playroom. The bedrooms aren't large so we can't keep toys confined to them. So we have toys spread out. I try to keep them in the basement and only bring up a few things at a time. But my kids are all very mobile and move toys between floors very easily. But just once I want to clean the entire house from top to bottom. I bet even if it were just me doing it it wouldn't even take 4 hours tops. But it seems like while I'm cleaning the living room they are messing up the front room. When I clean the front room they are eating lunch and so the dining area gets messy. While I take care of lunch dishes, the living room gets messy.
And this extends beyond cleaning. I can't even sit and knit an entire row of a project. I remember when I used to be able to complete rows each day. Now I can complete some stitches! And laundry, my goal is only one load a day. If I can get two done that's a big bonus. I used to run 4 and 5 loads through a day!
And I am so sad to see my little man changing from a baby to a toddler (okay, so he really did that already and my husband says he going from toddler to preschooler, he's still 1 and I'm not ready to speed him up that quickly!) part of me looks forward to when he is 4 or 5. To a time when he can sit and entertain himself or play in the backyard without constant supervision. To a time when he can do more chores and help out and to a time where he won't dump out 5 boxes of toys just because he can. (of course I know at 5 he will probably dump out boxes of toys but hopefully by then it will be to play with what was inside for more than, you know, 32 seconds).
And yet, I know there is a day where I will want this time in my life back. Where I will miss it and mourn it and tear up when I think about how wonderful and grand these days of having such young children around were.

And yet some how in the midst of wanting them to age faster but being so sad that they are growing up, what I am really struggling with is trying to sit back and enjoy what I have right now in front of. To think of only today and not be sad for yesterday or anxious for what tomorrow brings. Because they do grow so quickly. And they change so much. And I don't want my memories of their childhood to be the wishes of being able to be in a different stage (whether ahead or behind where we really are) but to love and enjoy the moment with them now.