The dirty truth

On the tidiness spectrum, I've always been somewhere near the middle. Unfortunately, living with two little people who couldn't care less whether we have a clean house has seemed to nudge me toward the slovenly side. I've said to Mark time again that I don't know how people do it, have young kids and maintain a clean house. It's all I can do to stay on top of the big three: clean bathrooms, clean kitchen and laundry. Even at that, I seem to be coming up short on the kitchen especially. My countertops alone can send me into a funk. I try not to even look at the floor, which cannot stay clean for more than a few hours.

It doesn't help that on the organization spectrum, I lean toward the dis side. I find myself drowning in piles of kindergarten artwork and handouts. Each day Ben brings home another stack. I have my system of putting special artwork in a binder, important handouts in a folder and tossing the rest. Despite my best intentions, I always fall behind. Usually Ben's papers find their way to the piles that litter the countertops for at least a few days before being filed.

"But Jess," you may politely assert, "we all have a hard time keeping our houses clean." Why, just the other day my friend Julie confessed to me that she hadn't dusted in a month and it was driving her crazy. Ha! I don't remember the last time I actually dusted. Dusting for me typically consists of looking at a surface and thinking, gee that looks dusty, and then swiping at the dust with my hand sending particles flying into the air. No, really.

"But Jess," you may press on, "I've been to your house and it looks perfectly fine." To that I will mentally pat you on the head in a patronizing way and think, "Oh good, you fell for it." If you come over and my house looks tidy, it's most likely because I knew you were coming and scrambled around like a crazy woman to get the house looking decent. If you had come over unannounced, here's what you would see. Various socks, shoes, and books littering the living room floor. And toys, lots of toys. Most likely you would step on a car, probably Chick Hicks from the movie Cars. I do at least once a day. ("Dinoco is all mine!" "Chachooga, chachooga, chica, chica," he shouts.)

And if you really think I'm the slightest bit organized you haven't seen the pièce de résistance of the house, the room that my kids, unaided, have coined "the messy side." This would be the unfinished storage half of our basement. There beats the ugly and cluttered heart of the house. Much like the Wizard of Oz, when kids come with their parents and approach the messy side, I think, "Don't look over there kids, there's nothing to see." I know it doesn't have to be with this way, but right now taming the mess seems an impossible task.

In my doctor's office I read this saying: "The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow, for children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow. So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep. I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep." I've always thought this was apt, and right now it describes pretty well the philosophy to which I ascribe. So if you come to my house, go easy on me. And whatever you do, don't look at the messy side.

Paulo Picasso

For a long time I have been surprised that we have been able to avoid many of the typical kid disasters. We have yet to end up in the ER as a result of an accident, and while the boys had committed some minor infractions with crayons, pencils or markers, they had never launched a large-scale attack on the house. Until last week.

I might have known that if one of my kids were to make the foray into more serious damage it would be Paul, he of the maniacal laugh and sh*t-eating grin. The child delights in being naughty. I had left him downstairs for a few minutes while I changed Gus upstairs. "Mommy!" he called. "I want to paint." By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I saw it. Pinkish-red paint smeared all over the wall. As I descended the steps, I took in the full scene. Paint all over his pants, creating the impression that he had maimed himself; blobs decorated a chair, the floor and a few toys. "Paul, what did you do?" I gasped.

I was surprised and slightly bemused. But the damage was done. The paint, left out from a school project Ben had worked on the day before, came out fairly easily. The wall will, however, need to be touched up. Faded pink streaks remain. Paul and I have talked at length about the proper place to apply paint. "On paper!" he shouts with glee. Somehow I don't think we're out of the danger zone, though.

I'm that mom

It's official. I've become that mom, the kind of mom I swore I'd never be. It dawned on me as I was dragging my kids through a store at the mall. "Don't touch that, Ben," I said. "Keep your hands to yourself." I used to look at these kinds of moms with disdain and think, "Your child clearly doesn't want to be here, so why are you dragging him to the mall with you." I told myself no way would I ever make my kids suffer through an unwanted shopping trip. Oh, how the mighty has fallen.

Whenever I catch myself cajoling, bribing and threatening my kids, I cringe inside. Even now when I hear other moms doing these same things, I scoff - until I remember that I do these things on a daily basis. Why, just the other day I was giving Ben a lecture about how he reaps what he sows when it comes to his behavior. This was a lengthy and complex talk, and I know all too well how futile this tack is.

I'm also that mom who brings my obnoxious kids to restaurants and bothers fellow patrons. I remember about 10 years back eating at TGI Friday's one night. A family with two or three kids was dining a few tables over. The parents were trying in vain to get the children to behave. After they had gotten up to leave, some young men at another table applauded (i.e. Thank God they're gone). We didn't join in, but we laughed smugly. Now that family probably has well-behaved teen-age children (or if not well-behaved, at least able to sit quietly in a restaurant). That family probably gives me and my loud kids the evil eye when they encounter us at a restaurant.

One virtue motherhood has given me is empathy. I understand that parents aren't always the kind of parent they had hoped to be. Sometimes they need to just get out of the house and try to shop or eat out (family-friendly restaurants only, of course), tired and crabby kids in tow. So 10 years from now, I hope I remember this and give those moms a break.

How did I get here?

It's amazing how your whole life can come into sharp focus in one short trip to the grocery store. I'll explain. Last Sunday Ben and Paul were at each other yet again, so I asked Paul if he wanted to come to the grocery store with me. He could pick out a Lunchable, I said. "No!" he said. "I'll go," Ben said. "I'll go!" Paul said. And that's how I stupidly fell into the trap of bringing my two eldest to the store with me.

"All right you two, I need your best behavior if you want to get a Lunchable," I said. "We will, Mommy," they promised.

Soon I had loaded them into the car cart and we made our way into the produce department where they immediately began screeching, giggling, fighting and elbowing each other. "Oh, they're having so much fun in there," said a few elderly folks we encountered. "They're just great," I thought, smiling through gritted teeth. Soon we had reached the Lunchables. I let them choose one, but "your behavior had better improve or I'm putting them back," I threatened.

The bad behavior continued through the frozen foods. There I was yanking Paul from behind his steering wheel and placing him in the front of the cart to separate him from Ben. That's when I encountered a guy who said, "You've got your hands full, lady," in a sing-songy voice. Lady? Really? Did you just call me lady? How can I be "lady"? I'm not that old, am I?

Maybe I am. As the checker and bagger flirted all through processing my order, I glared at my kids and sternly told them to sit on the bench. "I'm older than you, I'm 17 already," said the girl checker. "Well I'm almost 17, I'm 16 and a half" said the boy bagger. I haven't been 16 for, well, almost 16 years. Wow. Who should appear behind me then but sing-songy guy telling the flirting teens that he was twice as old as them. So there. Where do you get off calling me lady, buddy? You're right there with me in the over-30 set.

"Goodbye, Mama," said my sing-songy friend as I was leaving with my naughty boys in tow. I guess it's all downhill from here.

By the way, after sending them to their rooms for 15 minutes when we got home, I caved on letting the boys have their Lunchables. I'm a pushover to boot. This was a sad, sad day.