I can recall a time when I looked forward fondly to the arrival of guests to my home. I enjoyed offering my house as the venue for gatherings, and I simply adored the role of hostess. My affection for having company come over coincided with a part of my life where I took for granted my open spaces with nary a dust bunny to be found.
Then one day my spotless home was turned upside down by the arrival of my heart in the flesh. My children. I love my offspring more than the air I breathe, but the fact remains that kids are the messiest creatures on the planet, and their ability to destroy is only rivaled by other similar, natural phenomena such as hurricanes, tsunamis, and tornados.
In my life before children, the one where I loved having people over, the decision to have company was quite simple. For example, a friend called and might say, “hey, do you mind if me and so and so come by?” Without hesitation I would reply, “sure thing! BYOB!”
Then I would go into the bathroom and play with different hairstyles in the meantime. I might light some fragrant candles, or whip together an hors d’oeuvre tray. Then I typically sat around flipping channels and watching the clock wondering why aren’t they here yet?
After you have children the decision to have company come over to your home means something different entirely. It means “oh crap! I’ve got to clean my house!”
Having people come over is the ultimate motivation to finally do more than load the dishwasher and complete endless cycles of laundry. It’s a reason to dust the mantle, scrub off the splatter behind the garbage can, and scrub the toilet. And it sucks.
As I find myself mopping the floor I have to stop repeatedly and scrub on unidentifiable sticky patches that never existed before little people with their leaking cups, tendency to drop edibles, and inability at times to maintain control of their own bodily fluids. After all, there’s always the chance it was dried poop. You just never know.
I vacuum, a rare occurrence, and am dumbfounded by the amount of cheese puffs and broken animal crackers hiding in the carpet. How did I not see this before?
I reach a point where I’m watching the clock like I used to do, but instead of anticipating the expedient arrival of my company, I am urging the passage of time to slow down. The baby still needs napping, and as she confirms my thoughts by rubbing her eyes, I use the vacuum to push back under the couch the dried gummy bear that tried to sneak out of hiding. The thoroughness of cleaning is no longer a luxury this busy mom can afford, and I find myself stuffing piles of mail in a rogue drawer.
Only a mother will find herself re-cleaning an area she swore she just cleaned, putting back toys for a 27th time, and shutting the door of the kid’s rooms knowing “ain’t nobody got time for that!”
Only a mother will consider giving their toddler a mess-inducing toy or activity while they clean, because you do what you have to do no matter how counterproductive it may seem.
You’re confronted with a kitchen table stacked high with coloring books and crayons, boxes of overflowing toys at every corner, and the very real fact that you have accumulated so much stuff that you really don’t even know where to start.
You realize that you’ve spent the last few years just straightening up all this stuff so it doesn’t crush you, and the depressing fact is that this is what you’ll do today also. There’s no more time to do a real cleaning job now than there is any other time, and that’s just the way it is.
Life with kids is organizing your overwhelming junk from one spot to the next, and nothing motivates this task more than the necessity to make a place for your guests to sit.
And the weird thing is that I just called all my stuff junk, and I never saw it that way until I had the kids. Before I had them the stuff was important. I organized it, I catalogued it, I dusted it, and all that was really important to me.
But then the kids came along, and my stuff went down on the echelon of importance. Dusting became secondary to cuddling, and mopping just seemed futile. And the only time I even notice this switch is when I go and try to make the place presentable for company, which is futile in its own regard anyway.
So if you come by and you notice the dust, or you have to move piles of laundry just to sit, know this. My house is a mess, but my life is perfect. It’s a perfect mess, and we love it that way. I’ll have far too much time to clean one day after the children have gone. So until then I think we’ll just play. Come on over, but just be warned. We aren’t ready for company.
Jeremy Crabb says
I absolutely loved this blog tonight! I feel the same way and find myself telling the other one the same thing. We have hosted a few gatherings over the last year and she goes on what the rest of us know as he desire to make us all miserable until she feels the house is acceptable for the guests. I’m pretty sure everyone that has come to our house is is planning on it one day knows about the little terrorist that love to destroy everything we hold dear, when it comes to having a somewhat normal household. Hopelluy we will all have a nice, spotless house one day.
brieann.rn@gmail.com says
Thank you! I think we’ve still got many years of chaos ahead my friend.