Here is the mantle.
1. If your 75 year old mother is preparing to move and keeps telling you how hard it is because she “has so much stuff”, you won’t believe her until you see it for yourself.
2. Because apparently you can’t have too many vases.
3. Or soap dishes.
4. Or canister sets.
5. And, clearly, everyone needs a set of everyday dishes and three separate sets of fine china.
6. Your sister, who lives with your mother part-time, and who was home ALL summer, may suddenly disappear to northern Ohio for “grad school” and “trade shows” and won’t come home from the time your mother decides to move, until one week after the move is completed.
7. Which leaves you to pack her stuff up.
8. And, when I say “pack” I mean put her things into hodge-podge boxes, cart them across town, lug them into the new house and up a flight of steps, then throw them in a corner.
9. Your sister is lucky you love her.
10. Because she’s a pack-rat.
11. You may be really excited to have this Friday off work, only to realize your mom really wants you to paint her new living room and dining room.
12. Your mom is lucky you love her too.
13. And when your mom lives just two minutes away instead of 25 minutes away, all of this will be worth it.
There are a lot of things you give up when you have children. You simply have to learn to let some things go. Like a good night’s sleep, disposable income and liquid assets.
You also have to accept the muddy floors, juice stained school uniforms and beds that don’t make themselves.
You have to understand that the bathmat will get soaked, that little children like to smudge up the television, the computer monitor and the car windows, and even though a backpack has come home without the slightest remnant of a snack for over a month, it doesn’t mean you won’t look in there one day and suddenly find a small container full of moldy strawberries. Hypothetically.
However, since I started my new job I’ve found it really hard to let those things go ignored because I just don’t have the time to deal with them. It’s one thing to see a load of laundry sitting on the floor in the basement and think, “I’ll get to that later” and it’s something else entirely to actually get it done.
It didn’t used to bother me if I saw a pair of socks on the living room floor or dishes in the sink, because I knew I would have time to take care of it. Now, I simply don’t get that chance. It’s frustrating and I have been letting it drive me crazy.
Yesterday, in the midst of cleaning the house, my daughter asked me to stop and listen to her play a song on her electric piano. As I sat on the edge of her bed and listened to her play Pachelbel Canon, I realized that I really need to stop worrying about whether the floors need swept or if the blinds are dirty.
Because as she played that beautiful music all I could think about was how dusty her keyboard was.
To my son:
“Maybe if you would have gone to the bathroom when I told you to, I wouldn’t be standing in the shower holding your piece of cheese and trying to wash my hair one-handed!”
“Is that stain on your jacket from when you threw up phlegm at recess or is it a blood stain from yesterday’s loose tooth?”
“Hurry up and go poop!”
To the puppy:
“Get your butt off my new throw pillow!”
“Get your butt off my laptop!”
“Hurry up and go poop!”
To my daughter:
“The puppy ate your soccer ball.”
To a newly purchased cleaning product:
“Your bottle says ‘streak-free shine’. You are not streak-free shining.”
To the television:
“Wow. Rick Springfield has had some work done.”
To my husband, when he asked me suggestively what was for dessert:
“Chocolate chip cookies.”
Follow
Email
Follow