Motherhood is Messy

After I posted a picture of my messy kitchen table on Facebook with the caption, “Motherhood is messy,” a friend sent me this poem (author unknown):

Come in, but don’t expect to find

All dishes done, all floors ashine.

Observe the crumpled rug, the toys galore.

The smudgy finger-printed door.

The little ones we shelter here

Don’t thrive on a spotless atmosphere.

They’re more inclined to disarray

And carefree even messy play.

Painted pictures, blocks piled high.

My floors unshined, the days go by.

Some future day they’ll flee this nest,

And I at last will have a rest!

Which matters more,

A happy child or a polished floor?

Motherhood is messy.  For those of you who know me personally, you know I’m a pretty well put together person (most of the time).  Below are pictures of my house just after I dropped the boys off at school.  Nothing was staged, I swear.  I feel a little bit like Teri Hatcher who posted pictures online without makeup to prove she hadn’t had plastic surgery or Jamie Lee Curtis who posed in More magazine with no airbrushing to expose the myth of perfection.

This is the train table.  No, I don’t see any trains, either.  Dylan calls it the toy dumping table.  He’s smarter than me, because he’s not looking for trains anymore.

This is my kitchen table.  We don’t eat here because there’s no room.

This is my kitchen sink.  The left side always looks like this.  Thankfully there are two sides.

This is the mail.  It lives on the dining room table.  Yes, it’s alive.

Be kind in the comments section.  Even though my house is as clean as a frat house, I really am a very nice person.  And I always have cold wine in my refrigerator.  And I make a mean scrambled egg.