The Runaway Mama by Jen Gregory

I started this blog over four years ago thinking it would be a great opportunity to share personal experiences, insight, and advice, keep track of aha moments and priceless things my kids say, and, of course, confess my worst parenting fails and lessons learned along the way.

I’m a pretty humble gal, so this is hard for me to admit, but I kind of sort of hoped at some point I would pass along a nugget of wisdom of such remarkable pure genius that I would singlehandedly rock the blogosphere and end up on the “Today” show couch opposite my longtime crush, Willie Geist.

You guys. Today (no pun intended), I hit the motherlode. This is it. This is that nugget.

You know that corner of your kitchen where you keep piles of recipes that you rip from magazines but never cook, stacks of field trip permission slips, event reminders, Scholastic book flyers, and fundraising catalogs from school, bags of chips, popcorn, and cookies that belong in the pantry but are needed so frequently that it’s easier to just leave them out, past-ripe bananas with which you plan hope (in your dreams) to make banana bread, Hanukkah gelt that you keep forgetting to throw out, the contents of a birthday party goodie bag filled with crap that you pray your kids will eventually overlook, a pile of chewed-up Legos that you found in the backyard because the dog’s new hobby is pilfering the kids’ toys, the shampoo and conditioner you bought two weeks go that you intend to bring to your bedroom the next time you bring a load of folded laundry to your bedroom (ha!), and the fourteen or so plastic cups filled with various levels of water that that your amazingly independent kids pour for themselves every ten to fifteen minutes throughout the day?

You know the corner I’m talking about, right?

You’re not going to believe what lies underneath that mountain of shit, I mean, stuff. It’s utterly spectacular. It’s space. Counter space.

S.P.A.C.E.

There is actual, real-life space in my kitchen to do stuff like cook. Or think. Or just stare at and feel calm, free, and open to receive the positivity the universe has to offer, because those who preach that nonsense that a messy house is a happy house most definitely don’t have children living among them.

I can see the horizon from here, my friends, and it’s fucking glorious.

You can do this at your house, too. I believe in you.

Happy Sunday night,