Fingerprints
Fixer Upper, Flip or Flop- these are some of my favorite shows on HGTV. #MommyTVI love the look of stainless steel and glass front cabinets. I think it is safe to say I love them even more in other people’s houses. There are fingerprints everywhere around here. Did you know that wooden doors get fingerprints? How about walls? Or the ever present smudge on the sliding glass door. I mean, come on, I try and get a painted handprint for a craft project and it looks like it was done by an angry baby sasquatch but there is one handprint perfectly placed on the front door to our home. Awesome.
I have the worst guilt about our house. I love our home, but you can’t come here. As in, I won’t invite you over without prior notice. About a week should be good. Not because I don’t like you, but I don’t want you to see our fingerprints. Everywhere. Our house is by no means dirty, but we do have a toddler. I vacuum regularly, clean the bathrooms on a schedule and if I got paid to wipe down the kitchen, I’d be a millionaire. Oh and I love the little Swiffer duster, that thing is easy and you can give it to your toddler to help when he won’t leave the vacuum alone. (If you’re lucky, he’ll even swipe it around where there actually is dust.) Yet, there is still stuff all over. I pick up the toys multiple times a day- which I’m fine with because it means Bubba is playing instead of stuck in front of a TV. I promise if you were to come visit you would think a block emporium exploded in our family room. In fact, as I write this, Bubba just walked by and went “Be right back Mommy, I go make a mess.” Its like he does it on purpose! Thanks, Buddy. No matter what I do there are crumbs on the floor, probably because Bubba just dumped out a bowl of snack-mix and did an Irish jig on top of it. There are toys under the chairs and goodness knows there are baseballs rolling around the floor somewhere underfoot.
The only thing that changes as the cherubs get older is that I don’t have to reach down quite as far to wipe the smudges. Oh, if you do it the way we did, you can entice your toddler to “help” put the toys away, which involves you picking them up and repeating “okay, this goes in the box, show me where” about 100 times. Cleanup songs be darned; he just dances while I sing them anyway.I have a friend whose house is always immaculate. I think I could walk in one day, unannounced around 9am during the summer and it would still look like it was straight out of a Home & Garden magazine. Yes, she has kids. Yes, they do activities, and play and imagine and yet everything is perfect. I wonder if she sleeps. If you were to do the same thing in my house we’d all still be in PJs, someone would be yelling about cookies (yes at 9am), and there would be toys all over the floor. I think that’s why I beat myself up about our house having “stuff” out. It quite literally feels like every other house in the world is clean and mine is well… not. Maybe I’m wrong and I’ve been reading too many magazines with beautiful photos of clean and orderly belongings, but that’s how it feels. You may be rowing along in the same boat with me, if so, welcome. We can visit one another, leave the judgement at the door and step over the Legos on the floor. If you’re one who has an immaculate house, and don’t be humble, you know who you are, tell me your secrets! Until I learn the secrets of the cleaning fairies, it’s time for building train tracks and playing dump trucks. Maybe I’ll make a mess of my own today.Be Great,M [ssm_form id='91']