Here I sit at the top of the stairs. I'm guarding the doors of Bubs' and Blue's rooms and their access to the living room. They will inevitably try to con me into "one more show", or beg to accompany me on the couch while I write. I periodically stare at the three baskets of laundry I should be folding rather than boring you with my words. Oh, and I still haven't cleaned up from dinner. Some nights I give up and give in. They go to bed entirely too late and the next morning my children are replaced. They awake as vicious little monsters who refuse to get dressed, eat breakfast or brush their teeth. So here I sit. Repeating I love yous and good nights in between the requests to "shhhhhhhhh."
The evening began with Liam's routine temper tantrum as soon as we walked in the door. God bless the 2-year-old. Today's trigger was exiting the jeep. He's a master manipulator and decided he would test his limits by requesting to get out himself, which led to him crawling in the rear of the jeep and playing with the umbrella. Having my arms full of stuff, a killer headache and needing to pee only added to my frustration. He didn't approve of my solution to restrain him in a football hold to get him in the house. I'm sure our neighbors think I'm a stellar mom. I'll be waiting for trophy.
Sometimes I wonder why I was chosen to be a mother. When I was little, I always saw myself as a wife and mother. I never had huge dreams about my career or traveling or any other aspect of life. But motherhood I was sure of. I had the names of my children picked out by the time I was in middle school and by high school I started visualizing my wedding even though I had no idea who the groom would be. My plan was to have 2 boys and 1 girl. Names? Dominic, Andrew and Rebekah. My tastes have changed.
My house is consistently a wreck. We leave at 7:00am every morning for school and work. The boys and I get home around 6:15pm every evening. I don't have as much time with them as I would like, even though sometimes I feel like I need to run as fast as I can away from them. Our evenings are consumed with making dinner, eating dinner, play time, showers, cuddles and bedtime. Most of the time the husband isn't home. He's busting his butt at work so he can one day have a relatively normal schedule. Cleaning isn't first on my list of priorities. Pop up visitors, even family, makes me anxious. I worry about being judged on my homemaker skills. I'm not a homemaker. Currently, aside from the laundry and dishes I've already mentioned, there are toys from wall to wall in the playroom (which happens to be the living room in this house), there is dirt on the floor in the kitchen and laundry room from the dogs (why do I mop?), surfaces are dusty, there is random 'stuff' throughout the house, and we won't discuss the bathrooms. I wouldn't necessarily consider it a choice to live this way. I prefer to call it a requirement of raising two small boys. I could spend my time chasing after them with a dust rag, bottle of Windex and the Dyson, or I could spend my time making memories along side them while looking beyond the mess.
Last night we had a rare evening with Daddy home. We had dinner together then headed to the park on our bikes. Ryan has recently graduated from training wheels on his bike. I met another mom today who's child will be entering kindergarten this year. We compared stories and she asked me how I felt about Ryan going to school this year. I paused for a second and then answered, "I can't think about kindergarten. I'm still recovering from the removal of the training wheels." I know he's going to school in 3 months, but I haven't given it much thought yet. Anyway, back to the park... (see, I told you I'm rambling) While Ryan can ride on 2 wheels, he hasn't completely mastered it yet. Before last night, he still couldn't push off and ride without my assistance to balance. He and Brett worked together for an hour last night and I'm happy to say he's mastered it. With a little more practice, we're ready to hit the trails around our house. Watching him learn from his daddy and finally master something he was struggling with gave me goosebumps. There were tears, falls and scrapes, but that child was hell bent on success. He has a double dose of stubbornness and persistence from his parents. Seeing him put it all to good use makes me proud. The experience gave me flashbacks of when my Deddy taught me to ride my purple bike with pink tires in our backyard. I love that I now know how he felt that day when I took off without him holding on. This is practice for all the times I will have to let go and let him ride as he grows older.
When I think about how horrible a house keeper I am at this time in my life, I do my best to push it aside. My children aren't going to care about a messy house. Hell, they make the mess! I don't want to miss my boys' childhood milestones because I'm worried about pop up guests. We're too busy making forts, cooking together, doing science experiments and exploring our new city to worry with a spotless house. You're more than welcome to stop by, but if you're going to judge me, wait until the boys are off to college to come over.
Don't get me wrong. It's not like the clutter doesn't get to me. I can't stand it actually. My OCD gets in the way of me completely being ok with a messy house. Hence the anxiety with guests. So I've come up with a couple remedies: Alphabetize the spices and sort the closets by color. This is normal, right? The boys' closets look like brand new boxes of crayons. All colors grouped together from lights to darks in the correct color order. I guess I have to grab hold of some aspect of our home in order to feel secure, while the rest of the place falls into the miniature hands of our children.
Oh well. Such is life. I doubt my children will dwell on the mess. Hopefully they will remember how much fun we had.
No comments:
Post a Comment