When my youngest daughter started walking, life suddenly got messy. Really, REALLY, messy. With two daughters under four, my dreams for a Martha Stewart-ish type home were destroyed. Totally and utterly decimated.
It would seem that my little mess makers had other plans. Real life plans, like finger painting carried out into the hallway, or play dough sculpting on the couch. I fought the good fight at first, meticulously replacing furniture inside the doll house each evening, wiping fingerprints off the walls every day, and not going to bed each evening until my kitchen was worthy of a photo spread. And every morning, my little mess makers would get up and set up a new day of challenges.
I was exhausted. And cranky. Really freaking cranky. Did these children not understand the importance of having the house perfect? Did they not see that there were more important things in the world than playing for Pete’s sake? Why, oh why did they have to be so messy?!
Oh wait...maybe I was the one not getting it.
After my little light bulb moment, I started to focus on the big picture and tried my best to ignore the minutiae. Did it really matter if the furniture was in the dollhouse the right way? So what if the girls put the bed in the bathroom, was this really going to change my day? Really? (Okay, okay, truth be told it totally bothered me for a while. Anal retentive personalities like this are hard to shake, people.)
I also realized that the only person who cared if my kitchen was ready for a magazine was me. Fine, Martha too, but she wasn’t stopping in to help clean, so I had to let that go too.
After a time, dealing with life’s little (and sometimes big) messes got easier. I started to relax and my children got a little bit older. This meant they got to help keep the big picture tidy so mommy didn’t have a nervous breakdown. That being said, they still manage to totally confound me. Why spend two hours cleaning your room and then turn around and undo all your hard work in 15 minutes? *sigh* Baby steps, Candace, baby steps.
This summer my girls went to camp for two weeks. It was glorious. You can imagine, right? Pristine bedrooms, and dish-free counters! Bathrooms with no toothpaste caked in the sink and full toilet paper rolls. I stepped on not one sticky thing….for two full weeks. It was heaven at first, but by the second week, I would have given anything to see a pair of socks on the floor. Then...wait for it...another light bulb moment.
This is why my mother has infinite patience when the girls visit her.
Someday I'm going to miss those little messes.
Because little mess makers grow up.
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