Why is it that when your husband and kids are all away for the day...and you know they will be gone at least until after lunch time...you actually look forward to doing chores? Is it the fact that you know work needs to be done so you do it? Or is it because doing work without having others watch you working is much more gratifying? Perhaps it is because you know that what you pick up and put away will stay picked up and put away--at least until the return of the litterbugs? There is something therapeutic about the quiet hum of an "empty" house. I suppose the rhythmic tumble of the clothes dryer and the constant whirring swish of the dishwasher soothe us mothers in much the same way as those stuffed animals we put in our newborn's crib...the ones with the fetal heartbeat sounds velcroed inside of them. I think it has to do with the fact that the need to not only maintain a clean and orderly household dwells within many of us...it is just shy of an instinct. But I also think that many of us lead such harried lives that we are forced to function in disarray. This state of frenzy often masks those comforting sounds and we are no longer lulled. The televisions and ipods; the cell phones and shouts...these are the sounds of a house...but they all too often muffle the sounds of a home.
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