Since I was all about joy and happiness last week, I feel like the universe needed balancing and this week, I seem to be all about the petty little grievances and irritations that have been building up over the last few months.

I’ve spoken before about the roller coaster that these months have been, how every time I think I have a handle on things, something comes along to pull the rug out from under me. I guess by now, I really thought that my kids would have figured out how to not use a new glass every single time they needed a glass of juice, but as we usually run out of clean glasses by lunch time, this clearly hasn’t happened.

I think the biggest pebbles in my shoes are all the ambitious home improvement projects that I started last spring. While they went like gangbusters for a few weeks, once summer came along, our focus shifted to outside projects and relaxing in the pool. Now that the cold weather has started to set in, I’ve had to look at my four walls a lot more, and I’m kicking myself for not getting a few things across the finish line. I also seem to lack the ambition to get started again.

Last year, my motivation for getting projects done was to decorate for Christmas. This year, well, I’m not exactly bubbling with enthusiasm to spend another week of quality time with the fam.

Of course, the other problem with getting my projects restarted is that I need to have a clean house before I start anything. Our house is never, ever clean. Don’t misunderstand me, I feel like I clean about 23 hours a day. I’ve even succumbed and gotten professional help a few times a month.

But when you have five people, a dog and a cat virtually never leaving a space, it is just not possible to keep it clean for longer than 30 seconds. In the old days, since we were only home for a total of two to three hours, aside from sleeping, the damage they could inflict on a clean house was minimal.

If I deep cleaned the house on a Saturday, I could count on it looking respectable until Thursday at least. I really only had to live with one day of shambles before I could clean it again.

These days, it’s really hard not to throw in the towel completely. Since everyone else in the family is already throwing all their towels on the floor or on their sibling’s bed, I would just be joining the club. I thought that after six months of pretty intense training, maybe some simple lessons like “put your dirty laundry in a basket” or “put the used dishes in the dishwasher when you’re done using them” or maybe even, “throw the empty box of cereal in the recycling bin, don’t put it back in the cupboard” would have sunk in.

I think what is bothering me the most is the limbo that we’re in right now where some things are sort of getting back to normal, but yet other things are so clearly not normal, and may never really be normal again. The truly aggravating thing is the constant flux. One week we can go to sporting events. The next week, a court case decides that we can’t. Then the next week, another one decides that it’s OK to go again. I hate feeling like a pawn in a game that I don’t understand, and I don’t want to play.

I do worry about the long-term effects on my kids. The other week, we pulled up at a restaurant to pick up our takeout. I asked G to get out of the car to come help me carry the bags back to the car. He looked at me like I’d asked him to be nice to his sister for a week on end.

“Do I have to?” And, it wasn’t his typical whine of trying to get out of doing work, it was a genuine reluctance to go out into a public space around other people. Realizing that this wasn’t the time or the place to get into an argument, I made two trips myself, and then started a conversation on the drive home.

G has been playing sports all summer and has been attending some extracurricular activities, as long as they are outside, so I knew it wasn’t that he was completely scared of going back into society. It turned out that he’d read some headline news articles about how eating in restaurants in general is a very germy kind of atmosphere, and he decided that with takeout as an option, maybe he never has to eat in a restaurant again.

I wonder what other quirks and habits my children are learning right now. Mainly, I’m worried that my children might not be learning to have compassion and to care for others during this crazy time. Based on their lack of enthusiasm for household chores and their increasing isolationist tendencies, I worry a great deal that they’re going to come out of this episode being completely self-absorbed and clueless about the world around them.

While six months, and probably longer, is a fraction of my life, it’s turning into quite a significant amount of their lives. These are the formative years, as they say, and, as they also say, “there is cause for concern.”

Maybe I’ve been framing this whole thing the wrong way. Maybe, instead of listing chores and creating to-do lists for them, I need to start reminding them that I need help. Of course, that means I have to admit I need help, which is always a tough thing to do. I think I’m afraid that their answer is going to be “no, I don’t want to help you,” even though I know they’re better hearted kids than that.

I guess that’s really what’s been bugging me, beyond all these petty insignificances. This experience is going to become a fundamental part of who my kids become. It’s up to us to make sure that they’re learning the right skills to navigate the rest of their lives.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.