Four Moms On Projects and Children

This week the Four Moms are answering the question, "How do you find time for projects that need to be done, require focused attention and which the children can't help with?"

Y'all are always embarrassing me with this stuff, as questions like this presume some facts not in evidence.

So you'll want to read what the other moms have to say:

Don't miss what the other moms have to say:
Raising Olives,
Life in a Shoe,
Smockity Frocks,

and then there's ME, at the Common Room, scratching my head, looking at the question again (why don't you look with me?):

How do you find time for projects that need to be done, require focused attention and which the children can't help with?


And as I look that question over, I am wondering, projects?  What projects?  Focused att- SQUIRREL!


And if the children can't do it, I probably can't either.  I don't know if that's because they are so competent or because I'm so incompetent, but I suspect the latter is a contributing cause of the former.


Okay, but seriously, you say.  And I say blankly and in a very small voice, 'But... I am...'


Next I wonder miserably why, oh, why, didn't I ask somebody else to guest blog for me this week.


But... I will give it my best shot.


What sort of projects are we talking?  Painting?  I've never painted a room in my house.  I did paint one at the church building once, and it was pretty much a holy mess (being in the church building and all, I sure can't say it was an unholy mess).  My kids were little then, and I let them run wild in the large upstairs room of the building while I splashed large buckets of paint over myself, and occasionally dabbed some on the walls.


Sewing?  I can't sew.  It's bad for my sanctification.  I tell people this and they laugh merrily. No, really, I explain.  Nothing at all, no, nothing makes me feel more like swearing than sitting down at a sewing machine and trying to sew a simple, straight line.  They laugh themselves breathless over my droll way of expressing myself, and the more I insist that I mean it, the harder they laugh.  


I will pass on a tip I heard once from a more experienced mother, and since I've had the opportunity to put it to good use, it's still nice and shiny.  Maybe it will help you.  She said she set aside one month a year for sewing projects.  She cooked some freezer meals (easy things, too) in advance, set aside almost all other projects, and gave the kids scraps to play with while she sewed away.  That also helped her live with her large family in a tiny house- she put the sewing things all away at the end of the month.


I've wracked my brains to think of other large projects I've done that fit the perimeters of the question.  Here's what I've come up with:
Writing lesson plans; 
refinishing furniture; 
Once a Month Cooking when the kids were really too young to be much help
Writing, period.
Planting the garden when the kids were so small they were in the way more than they helped.
Scrubbing floors?
What else?


here's where I think I have my first answer- 


1. I don't do those kinds of projects.  Not much help, is it?


2. I have never been the kind of person who would rather just do it myself instead of having the clumsy, awkward, time consuming, and yes, sometimes begrudging, 'help' of children. Unless it is dangerous (refinishing furniture, wielding a chainsaw- which, btw, is too dangerous for me, too), then the children 'help.'  


 If I am washing something, I give small children a spray bottle of water with some drops of essential oils in it, and a rag, and they spray and scrub away as ineffectively as they like.  


When refinishing furniture outside, I have given them a bucket of colored water, paint brushes, and pointed them to the garage, a tree, the side of the house- anything but me.


When cooking, I have set them up with some ingredients and a few utensils, or some bread dough to mold away with their adorably grubby little paws.


When packing up the house for a move (or unpacking), I have given them a box or boxes of things to pack or unpack that they can't really harm, and gradually moved them up to books (put them in the same way, nice and flat, all facing the same direction, just tight enough that they don't wiggle, but not so tight that they're scrunched).


When gardening, I gave them a spade, some dirt, a bucket, and boundaries and let them muck about happily in the dirt.


Mostly, I have them 'help' by doing something totally different along side, right up until the point where they help by taking over and I sit and sun myself on the back porch.  Or would, if I had a porch and didn't get terribly blotchy skin from the sun. 


3. Sometimes that won't do.  I know I did some deep cleaning projects back in my younger years after the kids went down for bed.  But then, some people cannot do that because they need more sleep.  If you need it, you need it, and should get it without shame.


4. Take advantage of naptime.


5. The Equuschick has a horse.  She sometimes leaves the babies here with us while she takes care of her horse or goes riding.  Not everybody has a bevy of aunties and an uncle and doting Grandmama within walking distance, of course.  I never lived within walking distance of any family until my youngest child was about six.  Except for one two year period, I did not even live in the same state, and sometimes not the same continent.  I did, however, have friends, and sometimes we either swapped kids, or, more often, my best friend brought her kids to my house and she watched the kids while I did some deep cleaning or baking, and then I brought my kids to her house and watched the kids play while she did some more involved project.


6. Wait 'til their father gets home.  Sometimes I could do this.  Sometimes their father was in Saudi Arabia and would be home in sixty days (and that's a short wait).  Hence my laissez-faire attitude about big projects.


7. One advantage I do possess, although it's also a disadvantage, is that I can focus on reading or writing no matter what's going on around me.  Take this post, for instance.  I started out thinking I had nothing to say and here I have been typing without stopping for the last thirty minutes.  I gather everybody else went to bed, but even though I was sitting right here in the living room, I have no idea when they did this or if they spoke to me on the way.  They probably did, and I probably answered, but it was my outer self, the one who goes on auto pilot for me while I am in the zone with my keyboard and words on the screen in front of me.  When people want my attention, they stand in front of me and repeat my name, and maybe touch me, and it's like coming up out of the deep end of lake.


I'm not sure I could recommend this to you as a wise approach.  


That's what I have. Help me out here- what sorts of projects do you have that need to be done, require focused attention, and the children cannot help?


What do you do about them?


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Oh, and using this custom random number generator, I've drawn a number for the winner of the Chip Taylor and Grandkids CD Golden Kids Rules giveaway offered in this post, and it's Courtney!  
The CD is out now, so the rest of you can buy it. If they're selling single downloads (and they are) and you can only get one, I really, really love I'm Just Thinkin' About What I'm Thinkin' About (and I'm just thinking 'bout you)"


Congratulations, Courtney!  Email me within 24 hours (heartkeepercommonroom, a gmail address) with your address and I will pass it on to Folkways!
Because there was some confusion about the ending date of the contest and the first announcement of the winner,  Courtney, if you'll email me by 10:00 AM Saturday (central standard time)  at heartkeepercommonroom, a gmail addy, with your contact info then I will pass it one and folkways will send you the CD.  Keep checking back, y'all, because If I don't hear from Courtney by then, I'll have to draw another winner