Uninterruped Parenting Part 3 – Things that change at home

Here's my last post for now on what I've been calling "uninterrupted parenting."

A few things have made uninterrupted parenting a bit more sane
for me. I've discovered that I have different coping strategies when I
don't have a relief partner on hand. For example, normally, I don't do
chores and cleanup after dinner. If my husband is up to it, great. I
don't do that stuff after dinner because, well, after dinner actually
means after kid bedtime, and that is often my only quiet time for one
thing, and for another, I risk waking myself up if I do that. And since
my infant son still wakes at night a variable number of times and
toddler gets up um, early, getting myself right to bed is key. I do
better- normally- with toys everywhere and dishes done when I get to it,
and as much sleep as I can get. 

I still need as much sleep as I
can get but I seem to be more sensitive to physical/visual chaos while
I'm doing this mostly on my own. So when I can I spend more time
sweeping, washing, putting away. I look for a way of doing some after
kids bedtime while staying calm, using it to tire me out. I guess I've
reached that fatigue threshold where it doesn't wake me up. When my
husband is home I ask him to pick up for 5 minutes. When I am working
and the (yay!) babysitter is looking after baby, I I use some of the
time to wash up, or to have her wash up while I hold baby, or to both
wash up and entertain baby. Seemingly little things help nerves stay a
little calmer: made beds, folded laundry.

I've never been one to
deem household order to be "better" or a key to higher functioning. It
is particularly interesting to me, then, that when I am more tired and
have more responsibility and less free time, I get to a point that it is
more important to attend to that stuff.