The Surest Way to The Dirtiest and Cleanest Floors
Having children does funny things to a person’s life. I find that my days are full of paradoxes and opposites. One child will wake up in a splendid mood, singing, while another wakes up and stumbles down the stairs with a frown on her face. Having a large family pretty much ensures that on any given day, at any given moment, someone is experiencing life in exactly the opposite way that their sibling is experiencing life. Sometimes one child goes from a fantastic moment into a wildly horrible meltdown within a fraction of a second. (If you haven’t yet have the pleasure of raising a three year old, well, this might seem like an exaggeration. I assure, it is no exaggeration to say a kid can go from being Mary Poppins to a screaming banshee that quickly.)
Having kids also is a sure way to have all at the same time, the dirtiest floors and the cleanest floors of your life. Kids make messes. It’s life. It’s accidental, and intentional. They don’t mean to knock half a tub of cocoa powder out of your hands as you’re whipping up a delicious chocolate mint smoothie for breakfast, and yet, they certain mean to yank that plant from the pot. Ah, the joys.
This was yesterday. Firecracker was on my hip (silly me, I should have learned by now), and all of a sudden, he flung his arms out, leaving this delightful mess.
This was just earlier today. I apparently had moved his little table too close to our indoor plants…and well, you can see how bright of an idea that was. (Seeing a pattern here? I need get on the ball! The kid is already 4 steps ahead of me. I should be better at this, he is #5 after all).
You see how messy life gets. It also means that unless I’m going to let us all live in a cocoa powder and potting soil covered house, I’ve cleaned and vacuumed twice in 24 hours. Who does that?! Only a mother of a very curious and grabby child…
And if you look at the rest of the house, though I vacuumed the main floor twice, I vacuumed around the Christmas tree box (still needing to be taped back up and put away until next Advent), shoes littering the entry way, toys and school manipulatives all over the play/school room… See the contradiction? Cleanest and dirtiest all at once.
But it’s a lovely thing…my kids are learning, exploring, laughing…sometimes they help clean up their own messes, even! (And so far, no one has even called me the evil Stepmother and themselves Cinderella). We’re winning at this. Now let me just go and try to keep up with the baby, who is soon to be crawling and I need to baby proof the house!