I spent the morning reorganizing the kids’ work folders as they finished school. In the process of organizing, purging, and musing over old journal entries, I was able to throw away a whole garbage bag of old schoolwork, used workbooks, and magazines/catalogs that I’ll never read. It felt so good, so freeing. (Yes, it looks like I’m having a baby, alright.) One bag down, ninety-seven to go.

A part of me desires order, serenity, and all my ducks-in-a-row. I also want my flowers to ever-bloom, without the hassle and interruption of winter. Living in Florida, I have that luxury, but I know that this is not the natural order of things. There is a time for spring and a time for winter. There is a time for order and a time to let go.

Often older women will tell young mothers: Let the housework go as your children will only be babies for a short time. I admire the sentiment and hindsight in which this statement is often made, yet I struggle with one thing.

The one thing, of course, is that if the preschooler’s Play-doh crumbs are left unattended, soon the baby crawls over to play in it. The baby keeps a few in her fist, and then moves on to the living room carpet, wherein she proceeds to smash it in. Then, the five-year-old races through on some contraption and runs up the stairs and so on. Then, you crawl in bed after a long day and wonder, How come my clean sheets are sticky and have blue smudges all over them?

Then if you try to track down the line of origin, the perpetrator is always The Kid Who Can’t Talk Yet. Or if the baby was sleeping at the time of the incident, the executor is always named, “Not Me.” I know about this stuff.

Claire Cloninger wonders in her book, A Place Called Simplicity, what we really mean when we say that we want more time:

Do we really want more clock time—more boring hours that never seem to pass, more frantic minutes to spend rushing around and racing against our deadlines? Or are we really hungering for more meaning-filled God time—more of the deep, sweet contentment that fills us when we are able to rest for a moment in the “timeless present”?

One of the ways I’ve resolved to live more simply is to purge my life of clutter– symbolic and literal. This morning’s trip to the trash is just a small picture, a tiny echo of what we do everyday when we pass over the world’s definition of what it will take for our family to be fulfilled: amusement parks, perpetual age-segregated activities, X-boxes, and a Disney video for the trip to the grocery store because—after all—they can’t expect to just sit there in the car for the fifteen minute drive.

I desire more meaning-filled time, not mindless rushing. Children—even lots of children—are not obstacles to living a meaningful, simple life. What is required with a full and bustling household, however, is that we are purposeful with the things we allow in and the things we purge.