Could You Bring Me a Blindfold When You Stop By?

(image from http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html)

I used to have it all together. I cooked lovely things to eat. My house was sooooo clean. I scrapbooked, made jewelry, sewed pajamas and Halloween costumes for my kids, always found time to work out. I even homeschooled my older boys for 3 years.

Then along came babies 3 and 4. Um, what happened to my life? In my former life, I was obsessive about keeping my house nice. My brain has an anxiety attack at the sight of a messy house. It’s bad. Like… I used to go to other people’s houses and want to start cleaning things up so my brain would feel better. And now I can’t keep my own house clean for anything. I’m a disgrace to obsessive compulsive individuals everywhere!

Today, if you stopped by my house, I would be like, “What? Don’t you have strawberry pop tarts smashed onto the walls of your dining room? It’s modern art.” Then I would tell you there’s a good reason I’m still in my pajamas. Followed by not telling you that reason. I would really hope that you stayed in my front living room, where only a few stray toys lurked, so that you would never see the state of my kitchen. I don’t want to see the state of my kitchen. Could you bring me a blindfold when you stop by?

Once in a while, I get everything spotless (on the first floor at least… don’t mention the basement… or the 2nd floor… or my toddler’s bedroom she likes to tear apart upon waking). I look around for a few seconds and breathe a sigh of relief. All is right with the universe. Then I hear it. The sound of a missile. It’s getting louder. Oh no! NO! I try to throw my body in front of it, sacrificing myself to preserve the cleanliness. But then another one comes. And another. And another. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The demolition crew is wrapping it up and my clean house just bit the dust.

My children seem to have an affliction called, “I didn’t see it. I didn’t notice it. I didn’t know you didn’t want it there”… it being “my backpack, my books, my legos, my trombone, my 47 dirt-filled shells from the beach that I was going to clean, but dumped on your kitchen table instead, Mom.”

This affliction was clearly present the other day, when I asked Wesley, my eight year-old, to carry his laundry upstairs and put it away after school. He picked up his laundry and went upstairs with it, returning a few minutes later. A few hours later, I was on my way up the stairs with Wesley to tuck him into bed, when a trail of laundry caught my eye.

“Wesley… I thought you said you put your laundry away.”

“I did.”

“Then what’s this all over the stairs?” I pointed to the incriminating items.

“Oh. I didn’t see it.”

“Really? Each of the seven times I saw you run up to your room and back down during the 4 hours since you were supposed to put your laundry away, this pile escaped your vision?”

“Um, I didn’t notice it.”

“Hmmm. What are the chances?”

“Well… probably what happened is… I didn’t know you meant put it all away. That’s what happened. I’ll put it away now, Mom.”

“Thank you, Wesley.”

See??? An affliction. “I didn’t see it. I didn’t notice it. I didn’t know…”

I’ve had to adjust my standards of clean a LOT — considering the condition that runs rampant in my children. Okay, okay… they try really hard to be good helpers, but mommy is a clean freak who woke up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, and she can’t seem to clean up the dead bodies as fast as they pile up, and her kids don’t know how to clean up the dead bodies as good as she does, anyway… and they might forget to use disinfectant, an important step in cleaning up dead bodies… and oh darn it, now mommy has the affliction, too. She’s one of them and she doesn’t care. Except she still does care, so she has to walk around her house with her eyes closed… which may, at first, seem dangerous, but, in fact, increases her chances of surviving the zombie apocalypse ten fold.

I give up. My house is a mess on most days at most times, though it’s not from a lack of cleaning effort. Mommy’s tired.

I’ve been needing an office area for awhile. I’m supposed to be illustrating my children’s book series, among other design projects. I also have a ton of scrapbooking, jewelry making, and sewing supplies that needs to be organized (though what century I will ever find time for those things again, I couldn’t tell you). Anyway, I found this completely AWESOME, entirely made of solid wood desk/bookshelves on craigslist for way cheap… what a work space! The desk alone is 7 feet across (plenty of room for drawing and designing). Since it’s almost my birthday, I had to get it for myself 😉

The entire room behind it is a mess, so I’ll have to close my eyes whenever I turn around, but at least my desk looks pretty! And I’ll be able to store my massive hobby collection in the side bookcases. (This is what convinced hubby to carry the 12 foot long monstrosity down the steps… the promise that all my crafting supplies would be put away instead of strewn across the basement floor.)

Also, in honor of my upcoming birthday, I decided to make a trifle for dessert tonight. (I’m really spoiling myself. You would think I love my birthday. I don’t. I haven’t aged a day since I was 19 so why should I have a birthday? But what better way to distract yourself from aging than eating something yummy? End tangent.) Making yummy things to eat also used to be one of my hobbies. (These days, if none of my children are screaming in hunger, I call it good.)

I ignored one year-old Tristan standing at the front window screaming his head off because his dad was outside mowing the lawn, and Tristan wanted to mow the lawn, too. I ignored two year-old Lainey dragging my vase with the faux flowers around the living room. She was even chewing on some of them, and I ignored that. I ignored Wesley doing a backflip off the couch. Kid is bound and determined to make it back to the emergency room a few more times anyway. I ignored the mess of dishes. I ignored the crumbs all over the floor. I ignored 12 year-old Devin reading a book, instead of cleaning his messy room. (I did comment to him that his room looked like a nuclear bomb and a tsunami hit at the same time, to which he replied, “Okay, Mom.” But other than that I ignored it.) With all the time ignoring these things allowed, I made a pumpkin-butterscotch gingerbread trifle. It was delicious.

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pumpkin-butterscotch-gingerbread-trifle

These kids are worth every bit of mess in my house. Tristan is, too, but he couldn’t be in the picture because he would have gone face first into the trifle. And that might have sent mommy off the deep end… 😉