How does she do it?!?

Arwen has a reflection up at F&FL that I found was a good reminder:

“A mom with four kids five and under does not have time to bake her own bread.”

If someone had told me that before I was a mother, I would have agreed emphatically. That woman must be so worn out! She doesn’t need extra work. She should buy bread.

Well, guess what? I have four kids; the oldest is barely five; the youngest two are twins, for heaven’s sake. I am worn out and I don’t need extra work.

I still bake my own bread. (Not always, but regularly.)

If I find myself with ten minutes where both babies are calm and the older kids are busy, I pull out the mixer and dump in yeast, water, flour, salt. I keep an eye on it as kneading happens, add more flour as necessary, prep the dough-proofing container. Later I carve minutes out of my day to de-gas the dough, to form it into loaves, to bake it.

I do it because, as strange and possibly cheesy as this might sound, it soothes me. 

Remember:  One person's "OMG how can you possibly find time to do that, you must be insane" is another person's "thing that keeps me sane."

 

Comments

[Cathie]

Count me in the "it keeps me sane" group.

[bearing]

I have a bread machine, which is how I do it. But there are definitely things *I* do that keep *me* sane that are hard for others to understand sometimes.

Like for instance, it's Friday at 5 pm and I can't wait for Mark to get home so I can blissfully spend time cleaning out all my "in" trays in the schoolroom.

No, actually, that is the fantasy version of how I will spend my evening. In reality I'll probably crack open a beer for each of us and plop onto the couch and we'll put our feet up and hang out for a couple of hours. And then maybe send the kids to bed early and watch a movie. And stuff. But deep down I'm going to be wishing I was organizing my inboxes.

[bearing]

(wink)

[MelanieB]

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm with Arwen. Baking bread keeps me sane. Perhaps there's a little bit of pride in it. A feeling that if I've made a loaf of fresh bread how bad can everything else be? I can't possibly be a terrible mother and a bad housekeeper I made fresh bread for Pete's sake.

I've had people express similar incredulity about how much I read. They couldn't possibly find time to read with all those kids. But I can't imagine not reading. I sneak into the bathroom and pull out my book when I need a little sanity break. Unless it sounds like the kids are killing each other, I ignore squabbles. I suppose I understand why to some people reading seems impossible, but for me it would be impossible not to read.

[bearing]

I am also an inveterate squabble-ignorer.

My friends and I had an epiphany of sorts when we realized that they assume all is well if the kids are quiet, and go to check on them when they start making a lot of noise; whereas I assume all is well if the kids sound like they're assaulting each other, and run to check on them when they suddenly go quiet.

[Donna Jannuzzi]

My "thing that keeps me sane" is scrapbooking. I get the, "How do you have time to do that?" comment often. The thing is, when you really love doing something you *make* the time to do it, no matter what it is. This holds true in all parts of life I think.

[bearing]

Yup. I can't see myself becoming a scrapbooker, but I can see how it could become a Thing That Keeps You
Sane.

I might resolve to stop saying "how do you ever find the time for that?" and start saying simply "do you enjoy that a lot?"

[Jennifer]

I think we all no matter how "busy" (and I hate that term) find time to do the stuff that we enjoy, or the stuff that keeps us sane.