excuse the mess

OMG this:

From Inspirational Quotes for Moms by Robyn Welling (fellow I Still Just Want to Pee Alone contributor) on ScaryMommy.com - Check out the rest. So funny.

I think about this a lot. I always hear these inspirational/positive mothering mantras of "embrace the chaos," "messy = beautiful," and "don't worry about keeping a clean house, spending time with your kids is so much more important, they'll be off to college before you know it and you can mop your floors then, with your own tears, shed over the memories you didn't make with your children because you were too busy cloroxing your toilet for the 93rd time in a week..."

"The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
But 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."

Okay I'm going to go fill a mop bucket with tears now.

I appreciate this theme, really I do. Theoretically, I'm all about keeping it real. But here's the deal. I clean (parts of) my house, like, three times a day (floors, counters, toilet seats), AND we have a housekeeper, and it's STILL a total pigsty pretty much any given day unless we're expecting company. There are legos and hotwheels and assorted sports paraphernalia and loveys and blankies and discarded ninja/princess costumes and dirty clothes (why is it that sweaty sock-balls simply CANNOT make their way to the hamper, my husband's included?), wet towels and soggy swimming suits on the carpet, the chewed-up trail of dog-toy detritus our pup leaves in her wake, the dirty dishes (didn't they JUST get washed this morning?) and piles of laundry (if anyone can figure out how on God's Green Earth four people create thirty-seven times their body weight in dirty laundry, I will personally award you the Nobel Prize in physics), the ever-present slimy puddles of water and sticky smears of toothpaste on the bathroom counter, and let's not forget the pee, oh THE PEE, everywhere, and I mean everywhere, but inside the toilet (<how? and why? and... how??? I will never, ever, ever ever, understand). Your forearms will stick to the counters and table. Walking on my floors barefoot is a harrowing adventure in sensory perception... "Man, I really hope that's a raisin." When people ask me if they should take their shoes off  when they enter our home, I answer "Lord no!" I wouldn't walk on my kitchen floor barefoot if you paid me. That is why God made slippers.

I will admit I used to be a total neat-freak, and I have had a (very) hard time letting that go. But I assure you, the past 5 years have been an exercise in significantly lowering my standards. And yet. If I literally did not clean, it would be three weeks before we overrun by a colony of rodents, carried away by a fleet of fruit flies, and/or had CPS come calling for an inhospitable living environment. And if you came over, you can try to claim you wouldn't judge, but in your heart of hearts, you would be planning your call to TLC. The American viewing public eats this shit up - probably because it hits so close to home.

What I really don't understand is how pretty much everyone manages to keep up enough to stave off the raccoons and social services? It's SO hard! Is there some secret I don't know about? Are you people holding out on me? Is that what basements are really for? If yes, I need to move to a basement state ASAP because our very visible garage and closet space is not cutting it. I cannot imagine if I didn't have a helpful partner, or couldn't afford to pay someone to clean my house once a week, or if my kids weren't obsessed with vacuums and Pledge.

Anyway. Thanks for pretending you aren't judging. That's worth something. See you all at our next meeting of Clorox Wipes Anonymous.

Of all the peccadillos I've passed on to my children, the strange penchant for cleaning products has been by far the most effective ;)

I drew a "Vacuum Ninja" for The Boy's lunchbox one day (the letter of the week was "V.") He was a fan ;)

Vacuum Ninja (Princesses) in the flesh

By the way, this blog post came across my news feed this morning from Rubber Shoes in Hell - Housekeeping: Slut Level. (It's so funny to me, I feel like this happens a lot - like I'll have a few posts in the chute and then posts on these exact subjects will pop up and I'm like, DAMN YOU, Hive Mind! Stole my thunder!) Anyway, she talks about how there was a seedling growing out of her sink, which reminded me of the apartment I rented in college that had mushrooms growing out of the walls in the bathroom. After I moved out the landlord was complaining to me about water damage and I was like, Gee, d'ya think?! There was a forest of FUNGI sprouting out between shower tiles and flowering from the actual wall. That would've been the first clue that something was amiss behind the plaster. Still. I think I might actually prefer shower-shrooms to the eternal stench that is a little-boy-toilet.

Update: A couple of friends pointed out that I'm basically full of shit, as evidenced by the fact that I have the time and energy to illustrate lunchbox napkins. They make a good point. (Though, as I said to them, this is by no means a daily occurrence. AND, don't tell anyone, but somehow over the last 6 months or so, DM has taken over full responsibility for packing lunches (and he's amazing at it, he even makes heart-shaped sun-butter-and-jelly sandwiches <3), which frees up time for my napkin art. I'm not going to look this particular gift horse in the mouth.) So yeah, okay, obviously I have some free time. I just choose to spend it doing spectacularly stupid shit instead of what desperately needs to get done. Rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, if you will. Basically, it's like, I could be engulfed in flames, and think, "You know what I really need right now? A pedicure."

The end :)