Wednesday, December 18, 2013

It's not how you think it is

What if someone told you that yesterday afternoon they baked cookies and listened to Christmas carols while their children painted long swaths of brown packing paper, turning it into one-of-a-kind hand painted wrapping paper?  What would you imagine?  What are you picturing in your mind right now?

If you're like me, you're probably imagining a woman dressed well, properly accessorized, hair in place, probably wearing an apron, bustling around a clean kitchen humming along to peaceful music.  The children you're imagining are all wearing proper painting smocks over their matching outfits.  They're chatting with each other amicably.  There are no dirty dishes, the laundry is finished.  The bathroom is scrubbed and ready for company.  The carpets have been vacuumed and all the beds made.  People have finished their poetry recitations and are waiting eagerly for craft time to be over so they can dive right into their history projects.  Yes, that's what you'd be imagining if you were me.

But guess what?  IT WAS NOT AT ALL LIKE THAT.

Yes, cookies were baked, yes there was music, and yes there was painting.  But all that other stuff?  No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Y'all- I was still wearing Monday's clothes that I had also slept in the previous night (as per usual when pregnant).  The hair: unwashed.  The earlobes and feet: bare.  There was no humming to music because my mouth was busy hollering at people to quit wasting paint and making a huge mess and why doesn't anyone else care about all these crumbs on the counter and BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!  The oven timer is going off!  But wait....there's nowhere to put the hot cookie sheets because this kitchen is such a freaking messsweetbabyjeezusgivemestrength.

Seriously you guys, there were not only the dishes from preparing the cookies (which I didn't even do.  Lizzy did it), there were dishes from breakfast, lunch, AND the previous night's dinner.  Don't even ask when the last time I mopped the floor is.  Really.  Don't ask.  Two of the kids threw old t-shirts on over the old t-shirts they were already wearing and then proceeded to use said shirts as giant napkins.  There were (still are) toys strewn all over the play room floor.  There were piles of both clean and dirty laundry in the laundry room- some of it in a basket, some of it on the table, some of it spilling out of the dryer.  Not a single bed in the house was made.

So yes, sure- cookies, music, painting wrapping paper (idea stolen from Katie Rhodes, who you should be reading if you are not already reading).  It's all true.  But the magical world where I've somehow figured out how to do all the good things at the exact same time and have nothing undone and no loose ends prior to commencing?  Yeah, I haven't found a way into that world yet.

I know I couldv'e just told you about the day and shown you the pictures and told you how lovely it was (and in the end, it was lovely that we did it all.  In RETROSPECT it was lovely), but the truth is that if anyone had shown up at our house during those shenanigans, they would've run screaming in terror.  It was a straight up disaster 'round here, y'all.

Anyway, I think that maybe some people are really good at the managing of all the things and maybe their houses really are pristine before they breeze happily through the fun parts of their kids' lives, but I'm totally not.  And maybe you're not either.  Maybe you're like me and you're waiting for everything to be clean and organized before you start on the fun things and then every night you bemoan the fact that there is never time to do the fun things.  And if you ARE like me, take heart.  You really can do the fun things.  You might just have to take a deep breath, push the squalor to the side for a couple of hours, and do something fun, dammit! 

It's way better than it sounds, especially in retrospect.  Promise.




post signature
Pin It

28 comments :

  1. Wow. I just found your blog and you are cracking me up. Laughing until the tears are running. Oh and I went to UD too! When did you graduate?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My husband and I were class of 2001. We is old and old-like :)

      Delete
    2. "Shut up!" says this UD class of 1996 girl (as politely as she can).

      Delete
    3. You are young! I was '97 and my husband '98. I was hoping you were older than me :)

      Delete
  2. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this!

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is great! And definitely something I struggle with. It's good to get some perspective!

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Maybe you're like me and you're waiting for everything to be clean and organized before you start on the fun things and then every night you bemoan the fact that there is never time to do the fun things."

    This is me a thousand times.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hahah! I was JUST thinking this earlier today as I'm hollering at the kid for planting her hands in the wet paint project and then sequestering her on the other room while I finished the cookies so I wouldn't have a complete meltdown disaster in my hands. End result? Cute cards and yummy cookies for the delivery men and mail lady. Process. Not AT ALL pretty.

    Oh, and speaking as a class of '97er, y'all ain't even close to old!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. That is so totally me! You are not alone. What kind of cookies are those?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Okay, I posted the cookie recipe because I got a bunch of requests! Here ya go: http://www.houseunseen.com/2013/12/black-and-white-chocolate-peppermint.html

      Delete
  7. Ay, ay, ay...those cookies!!! Yeah, what kind are they? And, yes I'm totally like you, especially the laundry part, everywhere, clean, folded, wrinkled, dirty and there are piles all over the place. But sometimes you've just got to get to the fun stuff before doing the everyday stuff or else, let's get real, we would never get to do the fun stuff :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I want my kids to have the same great memories that I have, of parents who actually had the time to hang out & do fun things, of all our little family traditions, and of a home that was comfortable and relaxing and a place people wanted to be.

    It was never the cleanest house on the block, but at least we grew up knowing how to clean a bathroom in the five minutes it took for mum to identify a visitor in the driveway and for the doorbell to ring!

    ReplyDelete
  9. How did you know I was waiting for the kitchen table and floor to be scrubbed before I made cookies and decorated the gingerbread house with the kids this weekend? I'm doing it this week anyway. Mess be damned.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This year I've been honing my cookie-procuring skills so I...don't have to make any. Ever. We've been surprisingly well-stocked despite the lack of baking!

    ReplyDelete
  11. As long as you get cookies out of the deal...the mess is worth it. Cookies are always worth the mess!! That is my philosophy at least. And, there is really no point in cleaning up the mess BEFORE doing crafts and baking cookies, because those things are MESSY, so it's just going to get dirty agian. Might as well just clean it all up at once (that is my philosophy anyway, of course my house is always messy, so take it FWIW).

    ReplyDelete
  12. Darlin'… nobody has it all together. Well, nobody with lots of kids and no other kind of outside help. When I do a craft or a project, even though I might not show it, you can bet something else isn't getting done. Only on my best days do I remember to put dinner in the crockpot before starting a project but it's just not possible to be in project mode and keep up with laundry and sweeping and everything else. I usually go like gangbusters and then clean up when it's all over. And no, I'm not ever fashionably dressed or showered some days because I'm just going to get myself a mess, so why bother?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Besides the finding time and focus part, the representing life part is the hardest part of blogging for me. If it wasn't a perfect day or an unusual day or a complete wreck of a day - how do you write about an ordinary day? I really like how you presented one here - the beautiful and the plain, the loud and the sweet :)

    ReplyDelete
  14. People still make beds?!? Eesh! I actually only make the beds when I change sheets or am expecting company, and I'm totally wearing yesterday's sweatshirt, though feeling accomplished in a clean shirt :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. This is awesome! I love it when moms keep it real!

    Maybe one day I will even bake Christmas cookies!! It hasn't happened yet in 22 years of parenting eight kids, but it could!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. You are totally awesome as we used to say.

    ReplyDelete
  17. now i feel absolutely OLd because i`m class of 99... oh, gosh!! anyway, i have only 3 kids and some days are simply like you testify: we wished all this perfect world, but it doesnt exist. if we perfect the house, theres no fun; if kids are having fun, they are unperfecting the house. anyway, since we live in a very small apartment, i try ti tidy up three times a day, so the leftovers of the morning fun dont stack under leftovers of afternoon fun. and it is less work to be done before bedtime, because, you know, tomorrow morning is... fun time again! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  18. You graduated from college in 2001?? Baby. And mopping the kitchen floor is my most HATED chore. And I can't even tell you the last time I did it properly. Dark tile floor for the win.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Thank you for the reminder. This December (well, longer than that) has been so busy, it's tempting for me to feel like everyone else must be doing better! perfect! ALL the things!

    Of course, now you've given me one more thing to do. I need to figure out how to fit baking these cookies into my schedule...

    ReplyDelete
  20. Oh my goodness.... just last night as I was preparing to bake for my youngest son's school party, I looked around the kitchen and shook my head. There were dishes everywhere in all stages of cleanliness. Miscelleneous crap was stacked on the kitchen counter as well as the kitchen table. The dishwasher is full of clean dishes that need to be put away, etc. I asked my family just how they expect me to do anything in there.... I actually did "push the squalor to the side."

    Tonight the oldest child WILL empty the dishwasher and the younger child will reload it - come Hell or high water!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  21. Eek! Thanks for the shout-out. And cheers to 'pushing the squalor to the side' and making way for something beautiful!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...