Here we are, it's nearing the end of March and we are nearly done with the chaos of construction. What started on January 8th has mostly ended as of a week ago today. Mostly ended. Meaning that we no longer have workers here all day every day. We still have the house to put back together and organize and we are waiting on a cabinet and countertop for the upstairs bathroom. (those take forever, by the way!)
Naturally, there was chaos in our home and schooling during this time. We had taken a break with our 5 year old during the later part of last fall as she wasn't quite ready for school with the approach I was taking with it. Over our Christmas break, she expressed more interest in learning to read and I found a math and language arts curriculum that was exactly what we needed during construction. So, when construction started on January 8th, so did our next school term, for both girls. I was determined to not stress over school much during construction, and I would say overall it wasn't too bad. We didn't get 4 days a week in for 6 weeks at a time like I had planned, but we made progress and learned things most days, whether through our curriculum books, on learning apps, and by watching the construction. Laying it all out, we ended up only about 10 days behind where we might have been.
Now that we haven't had any workers here for one whole week, my mind decided we can immediately get back into the routine and things would just go smoothly. Turns out, the stress and upheaval involved in three months of construction - workers in the house (sometimes up to 5 at a time), having to move from room to room to stay out of the way and out of the noise, and for two weeks we just took everything to the library, not to mention half our stuff packed away into corners of the house - all this takes more than a week to recover from. Who would have thought! We are all irritable, out of rhythm, the house still has piles of stuff in various places that make it hard to work or clean around, and the frequent dismissal of school lessons because of too much noise or stress became a habit that frankly, takes longer than a week to break.
The stress and anxiety I feel during these times is so overwhelming that I simply can't go on as we are. I too often resort to yelling, stomping just my right foot once (that's a maternal family trait passed on from many generations back), sighing, and even blaming my children for the stress we all feel. None of this is fair to them, nor is it true. It's simply a result of living in chaos for nearly 3 months! Obviously something needs to change. I need to look at my heart posture. I need to look to the Lord.
Throughout our construction time, as things were chaotic and stressful, I often thought I just need help. I need someone to come along beside me and tell me now clean this up or let me just organize your new bathroom for you. I need someone to commiserate with me and pray for us. But then I wonder, is it even fair to complain or share my struggles and ask for prayers? We did choose this path of construction knowing it would be quite disruptive for these months. We chose to homeschool our kids, so is not our responsibility to bear those struggles? Is it fair to ask for prayers for stressful situations we knowingly put ourselves in? That is a question I don't know the answer to.
In the end, we just have to keep on going. Do what you can in one day, go to bed, and then get up and do what you can the next day. There is no skipping ahead on the path of life, just living it day in and day out.