Clean This Mess!

I am not a neat freak.

No, that's not really true. In my head, I am a neat freak.

I look through magazines and salivate over pictures of immaculate spaces. I admire the pictures of neat, orderly living rooms, uncluttered by toys, with leather couches that don't have holes or dog claw marks in them. I imagine how nice it would be to have a couch like that in my home, one that smells like leather instead of yogurt, and milk, and God knows what else.

It's not just magazines that cause me to salivate. When I walk into friends' home that are somehow kept clean and orderly, I often stare, speechless, as I take in the beauty around me. It's Nirvana. How do they do it? Oh sure, a few have cleaning ladies, but most don't. Some don't have kids, or have older kids--well that certainly makes a difference, I remind myself. And some have one or two children, often not as young as mine, which might make it slightly easier for them. At least that's what I tell myself to try to make myself feel better. Then I go home, brooding with neatness envy.

In reality, while all of those things come into play, these people are probably just better at this neatness thing than I am. Because while there is a neat freak inside my head, that's usually where she stays. She almost never comes out in person, to play with the rest of us.

It may be self preservation. If that neat freak actually tried to keep things neat and orderly around here, she- I mean I- would have already lost what's left of my mind. See what I mean? Just thinking about it has caused me to refer to myself in the third person--a sure sign that someone who is already clinging to the edge of their sanity is about to lose their grip.

Before kids I could keep it together. Somewhat. Sometimes. As long as I had a day each week to focus on the house, I could keep most of the house looking mostly decent. Now? Forget it. Even when I do get things back to a neat and orderly state, my hard work is destroyed in approximately thirty-four seconds. And, on the rare occasions when the neat freak inside my head does come out to play and I focus, for example, on thoroughly cleaning the living room, I usually wish that she had just stayed inside my head. I stand back and admire the result of my hard work, and then turn around and see that, while I have been picking up, and dusting, and straightening, and vacuuming the living room, my children have been pouring cereal, flour, and dog food all over the kitchen floor, and then adding milk to make it more edible. Oh sure, if they would really eat it, that would be fine. But they don't. They just leave it there. For me to lay down and cry in clean up.

So yeah, I guess you could say I've given up. Oh sure, I clean the kitchen seventeen times a day. And the bathroom is flooded frequently enough that it's not too hard to just add some bleach and wipe everything down. But the rest? Well, forget it. But of course that only works for so long, before the neat freak inside my head starts nagging me, and I decide that a neat and orderly house needs to be more of a priority.

 Then I'm quickly reminded why it's not more of a priority.

Today, I told N to clean her room. This is not the first time this week I have told her. In fact, I have told her approximately nineteen times in the past two days alone. It was time. And since she is the only one of my children who actually can clean her room--to some degree--I fully take advantage of it. It's also a good way to separate NBO when the three of them have been fighting, telling on each other, and slamming doors for most of the morning.

For a few minutes, she is in her room and it's quiet. B and O are playing in their room, with minimal screaming, which makes me incredibly happy (yes, I have been forced to lower my standards in that area, as well). I am in the kitchen, way too excited that I get to do dishes without someone hanging onto my leg or removing the dirty dishes from the dishwasher as soon as I put them in.

Suddenly it is no longer quiet.

There is screaming. Then some yelling. I hear all three voices in the upstairs hallway. More screaming, more yelling, and then...laughter. And squealing. And more laughter. Lots of laughter. I peek around the corner to see all three of them upstairs, running in and out of bedrooms, and streaming what appears to be an entire roll--or maybe two- of toilet paper down the hallway, into the bedrooms, and back into the hallway.

No one is playing quietly. No one is cleaning. In fact, they are making it worse. Much worse.
But they aren't fighting. Or telling on each other. Or slamming doors. They are laughing. Joyfully. Together.

As they trash my house.

I will try to remember this moment later, when, after telling them that this is not what we do with toilet paper, I will be the one cleaning it up.

Who needs an immaculate house anyway?

Oh shut up, Neat Freak.

Stay inside my head, where you belong.