venting

I love love love my house to be clean. It's not that I'm organized or a neat freak its just that visually uncluttered spaces appeal to my artistic side.

I also have 4 young children. And I homeschool. Few people outside the homeschooling community realize that homeschooling is a synonym for "cluttered house".

Do you see my dilemma?

Here is just a sampling of things I've found on my floor this morning:

-20 pieces of dried cereal, give or take.
-1 lego tree, and some sort of star-warsy space ship
- math manipulatives
-A third grade detectives book
-1 naked baby doll
-1 load of folded laundry, that a child did not put away.
-countless pairs of shoes (okay a couple of those are mine)
-dirty socks
-more dirty socks
-pancake that Baby launched from her high chair. (she got good distance by the way)
-dirty clothes discreetly hidden behind a rocking chair
-a bazillion Littlest Pets figurines
-Scraps of paper
-grammar workbook

Back in the days BC (before children) I could afford to be compulsively clean. Now I know that I would ruin the relationships I have with my kids if I imposed my standards for a clean house on them. Yes, I need to teach them to clean, but childhood is messy. There is mud involved. And obnoxiously small toys.

I know it's trite, silly even, but God please please help me not to be a neat freak. My kids are more important. Help me to live in the clutter with grace. Help me to find peace in the midst of a home that is usually busy, and cluttered and never as clean as I wish it was. Because that's life isn't it? It's always messier than I want it to be. I don't want to lose those precious, irretrievable moments because I was vacuuming.