I love this picture of Devon enjoying the fruits of our first baking attempt in weeks, yet it still makes me cringe a bit. Oh, Buddy-O. My messy eater. Must it make all of those crumbs to eat just one cookie? I get a rag and wipe them off the table that was just wiped after lunch, and before that craft time, and before that breakfast. Sometimes I feel it's how I spend my whole day. Picking up crumbs. Pre-treating laundry. Putting away the pile of Thomas trains in the hall that Devon inexplicably calls his "dirt". Later they reappear in the very same spot. Wiping three sticky faces, and (yes!) one newly potty trained little bottom.
Just to be clear, I can't lay blame at the feet of only one of my children. These little darlings are just as messy, whether they're disemboweling a fresh box of diaper wipes, or finding discarded crayons to chew up until the colored wax froths out of their mouths and down their chins like Technicolor Rabies.
Children are a little like wild animals. They go best in their natural habitat, and I am convinced that it is NOT the house. Definitely not our house, a 2100 square foot rental with flat paint that rubs right off the walls if you use a Magic Eraser. Perhaps it's the pool, where they can flip and spin and splash and never leave a mark. Or the beach, unless you have THREE little kids with no fear of the water.
I'm thankful for our house right now. I think it's God's way of telling me I need to relax my standards on housework for the next few years. I like a freshly painted wall, a freshly steamed carpet, a garage that's as neat and cobweb free as a room of the house, and a car that's free of trash and crumbs and smells like a Yankee candle. I just don't think it's doable right now, at least without losing my mind. You know the saying:
Kids--> Clean House--> Sanity
You can't have all three, so pick two.
Craig and I marvel at the forty-five minute mess any of my children are capable of making if left alone for a good ninety seconds, mentally checking off the positive traits that will manifest themselves in more appropriate ways down the road. Problem solving. Critical thinking. Zest for life. Inquisitiveness. Eye for color. Creativity.
"Look at that! I would never THINK to spit milk from a sippy into the back of the dump truck and drive it around on the carpet!: Craig says, looking on the bright side.
I get the rags and the 409.
Sometimes by the time Craig gets home I'm ashamed to say I've got a bit of an attitude, coming up with precious little witty sayings to impress him:
Craig: Wow! The house looks great! Where did you find time to do all this?
Krista: You like it? Heh heh. Well, take a picture to remember it by, because it's going to look just as bad as it always does in TEN MINUTES!
The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
They're actually the final stanza of the poem "Song for a Fifth Child" by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, and the rest of the poem is just as delightful as the ending. Sometimes I, always a quick study, repeat the memorized lines in my head as I'm gulping down the last of my coffee and getting up the nerve to start on the dishwasher. I allow myself a few extra cuddles in the comfy chair or one more game of "I'm Gonna Get You".
And sometimes I just want to find the mom speaking in the poem and slap her.
I mean, really.
Cobwebs?
Dust?
Someone's been waxing a little too poetic and overtrivializing the messes kids can make. I don't think the poem would be quite so endearing if she was refusing to clean up a REAL kid mess. Pungent nighttime pee in the bed of a child who sleeps with three special blankets and fifteen stuffed animals. Crayon hardening on the wall, the desk, the floor, and the table. Cherry cough syrup that someone spit out and walked in. A sated child in a high chair with cake on her face and pieces of Chinese Rice stuck to her behind. Maybe finished off with some peach yogurt smeared on the cat. The kind of mess that is only going to get spread through the house begetting more messes if you don't drop everything and clean it up right away.
For example:
The kids and I attended the ladies craft time and shared meal in the clubhouse of our housing development this week. Besides pointing at nearly everyone who walked by and announcing "The Ladies Who Lunch!" (my fault for saying it first, I know) I was constantly dragging Devon away from the buffet table where he tried to stick his hand in everything from a pot of rice to a fondue. Meanwhile the girls decided to make up for a finicky breakfast by eating a huge lunch much faster than I could prepare it for them, chucking everything healthy on the floor and bringing the words 'feeding time at the zoo' distinctly to mind. As I announced naptime and started wheeling for the door, I spied a squashed meatball embedded in the tread of the wagon that I hastily plucked off and stashed in my purse before anyone saw. The Ladies Who Lunch, holding their glasses of wine and looking on with interest, had already gotten an eyeful.
Devon's coloring skills are improving. Just not on paper. Anything but paper. Even our newish flatscreen monitor bears a ballpoint squiggle that Devon penned when I got up from writing a letter to answer the phone, leaving pen and paper within reach.
This is what Devon did to his window blind. I'm not sure how. It's OUR window blind and not our landlord's but I was still taking a deep breath and counting to ten when I discovered it.
Devon found it exhausting.
He seems to need to fiddle with something while falling asleep. Lately, it's been arranging about sixty of his Thomas trains on the bed, but I love these two November pictures of his empty toy shelf...
...and what happened to ALL of the toys kept on it.
We hit Sam's Club on last week's shopping date. This probably because he started crying loudly and sincerely for no apparent reason every time he was put into the cart. I finally decided to give in and let him walk, even though his shoes were still in the car. Several people probably got to the checkout with items they didn't remember selecting, as he amused himself by running up to people's carts and tossing in a box of sports bras or a few tube socks. His stamina lasted just long enough to get us through the store in twenty minutes, and then he had to rest his weary bones and black little feet on every single one of the display chairs.
Carrie and Melina love to ride in race car carts so much that I can't deny them. The useless safety restraints always fail and leave me pushing the huge cart at full speed through the store trying to scare them into not climbing out. Last week they instead amused themselves by picking the colored sprinkles out of their cookies and smearing them in each others' hair.
It's amazing how careless and downright destructive small children are. I can't believe I've had to tell Devon to stop licking the salt shaker, and found Carrie running away from the Froggy Potty with Devon chasing her, exclaiming "Oh no, she's GOT my poopie!" By the time eight o'clock rolls around and they're all in bed, I can either clean until my bedtime and STILL not have the house looking the way I want it to, or just give up and make myself some tea and sit down.
I usually choose the latter.
It's one of the few times I allow myself to listen to secular music. I have to be angry to clean. Not angry at my kids, mind you. Angry at the mess. I can't be angry when my Pandora station is on Hillsong United and I'm singing along to the beautiful, calm-inducing worship songs I hear in church.
So I change the station to Taylor Swift and push the broom as I sing along with what I sarcastically call "teenybopper music". It helps get the job done.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger....
Then Carly Rae Jeppson's song "Call Me Maybe" comes on. The kids, lying in their rooms listening to me work, have been waiting for it.
"It's our Dance Party Song, Mommy, Dance Party Song!" shouts Devon, high-kicking and clapping his hands over his head and running into the living room. I grab the girls from their cribs and pirouette after Devon with one in each arm. His dance moves are a parody of mine, which are a parody of someone who actually looks good dancing. It's never been a strength, but my kids won't know until they're older.
Now, while they're little, we dip and spin and sing at the top of our lungs:
Before you came into my life
I missed you so bad
I missed you so bad
I missed you so bad
Before you came into my life
I missed you so bad
I missed you so bad
I missed you so so bad....
Babies don't keep. Neither do almost-three-year-olds, or eighteen-month-olds. Not even the one snoring on my shoulder right now, stuffy with a January cold. In just a minute I'll tuck her in and curl up next to my husband. He works just as hard as I do, and still comes home and finds the energy to clear the dishwasher, help keep the laundry moving, and fix the screens on the porch so the wild animals can't escape.
I'll put her down in a minute, but not just yet. Eighteen months old is a hard age because they almost never sit still. Devon will climb into my side of the bed and cuddle in the morning, or snuggle in the comfy chair before naptime to read Sammy the Seal and One Kitten for Kim. Carrie and Melina don't sit still and let me hold them much. Sometimes Melina wakes up an hour after going to sleep, and I pick her up and her arm snakes around my neck and holds on tight as she curls into my neck and sleeps.
When this happens, time stops.
But I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
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