Category Archives: motherhood

May 9, 2012 · 3:22 pm

Mother is Messy (Part 2)

The response to yesterday’s post was strong.  It appears that I’m not alone with my sink full of dishes.  (Phew.)  I realized I forgot to show you two more perpetual messes:

These are my newspapers.

They live on the front porch.  Unless my parents are visiting.  Then, they’re brought inside, read (crazy, I know), folded nicely, and recycled.  On those days, the newspapers are happy.  The rest of the time they’re here feeling sad and unappreciated.

And about the umbrella stand in the corner?  I had no idea it was even there until I snapped this photo.  It’s been there so long that it just blends in.  Like the miscellaneous donation pile living in the corner of my dining room (not pictured here).  It’s been there so long that it’s invisible.  It’s magic, really.

And here it is…the best mess of all…the backseat of the car.

A messy, dirty car is another reason – besides supermarket meltdowns, potty training, shots, and vacations that are not vacationy at all – not to have kids.  Kids trash cars.  Unless you’re one of those parents that has a no-food-in-the-car rule, but I’ve never met one of those.  Had I taken this picture last week, you would’ve seen the aftermath of a Pirate’s Booty bomb.  Dylan opened a bag of Pirate’s Booty all by himself (high five for fine motor skills!), but the bag popped and there was a Pirate’s Booty storm.  It was like an infant poop explosion that oozes out the back of the diaper in that it was hard to know where to begin to clean it up.  I know there are cars in worse shape than mine (I’ve seen them), but mine is still pretty “crumby.”

Do you want to share your “Motherhood is Messy” photos?  Email them to me at therunawaymama@gmail.com and include some basic information, like your first name, how many kids you have and their ages, and a brief caption for the photo.  I’ll post them periodically.  Maybe your mess will be famous like mine!

p.s. Please don’t send weird, inappropriate pictures.  My kids do plenty of gross stuff, but they’re mine.  I don’t want to see other people’s kids’ gross stuff.  Thanks for understanding.

 

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May 9, 2012 · 11:46 am

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.

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