Sometimes you just have to go with it. Really.
Too bad I do not get paid for the amount of time I spend cleaning our house. I'd be rich. And you see, the cleanup is not always the kind of clean up you can hire a maid for. Sure, some of it is. The daily vacuuming dog fur, the countertop wiped down and the hand prints off glass windows and doors. Sure, that's all stuff someone else could easily do, yet for a pretty hefty price if that. But it's not that. Are they really going to vacuum all the dog fur from behind the toy bins and my planted pots? What about the fur mixed in the toy bins? Then, of course, do I dare even mention the fur and crumbs mixed in with Legos? I am mean, are they going to sit there and separate it? Well sure, for $40.00 an hour. For that price, in that case, I can just run out and grab a new Lego set.
And what about everything else? Who gave the toads a bath in the bathroom sink? I'm so glad they are clean; our sink is now not. Who made a grilled cheese I was unaware of, yet I find the half-eaten sandwich a day (or two) later just out of the dog's reach.
The kitchen counters start off clean and uncluttered to by the end of the day they are filled with random RC car chargers, half bottles of water and cicada casings. Yes, you read that right. Cicida casings. Ok, you can call it gross, I can't say I am particularly fond of it myself. but I am the mother who can confidently say I have cicada casings on my kitchen counter...so often actually, that it does not even phase me anymore.
And while I am at it, here's a quick story. One day after catching creatures in a nearby pond, my boys decided to put the little fellows in an open cute dish we had on their art room table. Only to find a little while later the leach had escaped!!!! All I could say was ...'Find it!' Not sure how long they looked or if they got distracted, but about an hour later I head up our nice white steps, about to reach down to pick up what I thought was a stick and stopped myself cold. It was the leach. Yep, now I can officially say I am the only mother in Bartlett who had an escapee leach in their house.
The way a silent house at 5:30 am can go to two boys suddenly seemingly waking up the entire neighborhood in two seconds beats me. The way I find random splashes upon on the ceiling and walls that make absolutely no sense whatsoever also beats me. The way hot glue sticks and cut up cardboard pieces are left as if they are a gift for me. The way I find a random Pokémon card soaking (yes soaking) in the bathroom sink, still blows my mind as well.
"It's just an energy, mom We have so many of them".
In my mind I'm thinking...'So, you have to soak it?'
What's the constant fascination with water...?
We must have 6 jars with different spiders in them? Yea, the lids are tight, so they have not escaped...yet. But anytime there is a spider, there is a chance. Aside from our dogs and chickens and bird and toads, we now own a Whip Tailed Scorpion named Beatrix. Never thought I'd have one of those....
Skateboards line my floor at times and for whatever reason there is always one shoe in one room and the other three rooms away. Not sure what the story is about that.
The laundry seems to grow on its own and the clean laundry seems to take up residence upon my bedroom rocking chair until there is actually time to get to it. I find things tied in pipe cleaners; strings tied around things and handles tied with strings as an octopus or some other plastic ocean creature hangs from them.
In the summer the best place to keep swimsuits is exactly where you took them off, in some random place, or some random room and leave them on a sopping wet pile. I guess it's how boys think it will dry best.
Being a homeschool mamma, there is no break in-between. I'm still cleaning up breakfast, and they ask what's for lunch while they pointlessly stand with the fridge and freezer door open at the same time. After checking what is inside for the 10th time, like somethings changed in that two-hour span.
I am not going to even mention the back of my Jeep. All I can say is it is incredible what two boys can do to the back of a Jeep, while still buckled that is, in a day out. That's all I can say.
Yet here's the thing. When my oldest was a baby and I redid our entire home and painted it all perfectly and decorated it and everything had its place, it was beautiful. Yet here it is 13 years later and now two boys and not only is our home still beautiful but man, it is filled with stories. It is filled with memories and emotions and places only a mother can understand. It is filled with something that you cannot buy. It is filled with love.
My boys, although a wild ride, are the best things that have ever happened to me. And the sad truth is, it is all so temporary. The sad truth is, it's all gone in the blink of an eye. No one tells you the deep pain of seeing your child grow and not need your hand anymore. It's bittersweet. You want them to grow up and be capable and free in the world, yet at the same time how blissful is it to hold them and tuck them in at night knowing they go to bed safely?
Sadly, you never know when the last time is for certain things. Like the last time you nurse, or the last diaper change, or that last time you pick them up without breaking your back. You don't know the last time you cut their grapes in half or the last time you pick up a soaking we bathing suit from the bedroom closet floor.
What we see online, are perfect post with perfect poses in perfect outfits. Yet life is not like that. Mothers know. Kids are loud and messy and happy and totally in the moment. They are full of ideas and creative and hands on and willing to try anything. And that's a beautiful thing.
They want to bake and paint and play and roll Hot wheels down the stairs. They want to soak things and mix things and ride things and just be free. And that's a beautiful thing.
And one day, when my boys go on their way, the house will be silent again. The kitchen counters will be empty. The walls will be smudge free. There won't be Play-Doh or Silly puddy stretched across cabinet handles or markers spread across the floor. There won't be remnants of dirt in my bathroom sink because one or four toads had a bath. The laundry will feel minimal and I won't be tripping over skateboards.
I will be standing there one day in silence, only hoping I gave my boys the childhood they needed to be free and creative and kind out in a world that can be otherwise.
I know this now in the mess of it all. I type this in silence, yet I know they will soon wake. What a beautiful gift to be a mother to two boys. The noise, the mess, the love, the kindness they hold. The emotions, the happy moments to the sad. What a gift we are given in life to feel, to connect, to have opportunity to experience it all.
Some days are simple. Some days are hard. Some days seem harder than hard. Yet every day I love them more and more to a level so deep I cannot even explain in words.
Some days we stay home. Some days we go out. jumping in the Jeep, I make sure they have their shoes because yes, it's happened, (more than once may I add) that we get somewhere and guess what...no shoes. Not sure how you can forget your shoes when leaving the house, but my boys found a way. Good thing for keeping a pair of good old Bogs in the back of the Jeep. I guess they are not just for rainy days....
