My life has been a disaster since Sadie was born, as evidenced by the state of Brian and I's bedroom for the last year and a half. Today I cleaned our bedroom and found Christmas presents from my students that were given to me when I went on maternity leave. I'm talking Christmas 2009!! It's like ever since Sadie was born, I haven't been able to catch up; not on my sleep, on my housework, on my hobbies, nothing! I am NOT Clair Huxtable...seriously, how does that woman do it?!
I've been watching episodes of The Cosby Show, and I am half way through season 3. Here's what I've learned about Clair Huxtable:
- she has carried 5 children and still probably weighs barely 100 pounds
- she gets her entire family up and off to school, making them breakfast and lunches, and still manages to leave for work looking beautiful...and on time
- she always laughs at her husband, even when he's clearly being annoying
- she speaks fluent Spanish and Portugese
- she sings beautifully
- her house is spotless
- she has time to garden and cross-stitch and read the paper
- she keeps track of "the books" (meaning, she pays the bills)
- she can get the entire family out the door to a formal function in 30 minutes
- she makes it home most nights to make a 3 course dinner and kiss her children goodnight
- and she never ever ever gets stressed out by all of this
I, on the other hand, am a completely different story. I live in a constant state of stress. My child screams all day, pukes up everything she eats, and won't drink. I yell at my husband for not doing what I want him to do, then I yell at him for asking me questions so that he can know what I want him to do. My toilets have a permanent ring around them from the hard water, and I can't even remember the last time the floor was vacuumed in my bedroom (maybe when I brought those Christmas presents home in 2009!). I can't finish most of the projects I started, and when I set my mind to an exercise plan to lose weight I end up injuring myself half way through it.
So, I want to know, how does Clair Huxtable do it? She is both a TERRIBLE example, since she's not real and everything always works out fine in TV-land, and a great motivator. I now have 2 clean bathrooms and I've rearranged the furniture in the living room so that I could vacuum underneath it. My child still screams all day and all night, but I have a new approach, I just ask myself: "what would Clair do?" And then I realize...she'd probably scream and pull her hair out too!
