I just spent half an hour on my hands and knees cleaning our sofa because somebody (not me) left a pen in the living room overnight and this morning my son saw an opportunity to practice writing “W’s.” I was on the phone with my mom and not paying the proper amount of attention I should have to my two year old son. When I looked over, I noticed he had stopped watching “Sesame Street” and instead was fixing his attention on the sofa. “Big ‘W’ right there!” he said. It took a few seconds for my brain to register what was happening, to quickly drop the phone and grab the pen out of my son’s hand. By that time, big W’s covered the arm and seat of our sofa. Of course, I was so impressed at his penmanship that I wasn't even angry. I picked him up and showed him that pens are for drawing only on paper, not furniture. “Mama is still pretty proud of your perfect ‘w’s’ though.” I laughed and thought, if these w’s don’t come out at least there is proof that my son is a genius. I’ll show it off the next time those Parents as Teachers reps come for a screening. And then I pictured myself hanging the sofa on the refrigerator with magnets. “His first W’s,” I cry.
Things like this happen all the time. When you become a parent your house will never look clean and fresh again. It won’t smell the same, either. The complete transformation usually happens the second your child becomes mobile. Your carpets will never be spotless, your wood floors always scuffed, your walls never quite as white, or off-white, as in our case. When we removed the metric ton of toys from our living room floor and into our son’s new room, we discovered so many spots on our carpet, some of which hadn’t seen the light of day since my son was at least six months old. Our living room carpet is destroyed. It’s the only room of our house that is carpeted, thank God. When I suggested to my husband that we replace it with new carpeting, he said, “Not until our kid and future kids are at least ten years old.” And even then, accidents always happen.
I’ve always thought of myself as a relatively clean person. I say this because cleanliness is relative. My definition of clean varies significantly from my mother in law’s. She has floors so clean that when my son drops a piece of food on the floor I tell him “Only at Gaga’s house could you still eat that.” I’d like to think I keep a clean house, but I’m sure those two mean British ladies with the white gloves who inspect homes on that one BBC show would disagree. I have a cat, hardwood floors and long hair, the combination of which stirs up dust bunnies like you wouldn’t believe. I dust on a fairly regular basis but it seems that the second I’m done another layer has settled. I like things orderly, but I don’t freak out if I have a sink full of dishes. If I don’t get to them today, they will be done tomorrow. They don’t stay in the sink longer than that. If you come over to my house on the day that I just cooked a pot of spaghetti, don't gross out. I might have cleaned the pots and pans and I might not have. If I haven’t yet, I promise, they will be clean tomorrow. That’s kind of how I operate. I am proud of it, actually. I don’t have to run a tight ship and have a perfect house to feel like I’m a successful stay at home mom. As long as most things are put in their place and the flat surfaces are not overflowing with stuff, I’m good. I’m not obsessive by nature and I won’t start now by obsessing over cleanliness. I want my son to live in our house and not feel like he’s confined to a museum. I don’t want him (or me) to have a nervous breakdown if he spills something on the floor or writes “W’s” on the sofa. Most things come right up with a warm washcloth anyway. So I guess it’s fair to label my house “clean enough.”
I would also go ahead and label my son as a relatively clean little boy. He takes a bath every other night. I would give him one every night, but he’s only two years old and he doesn’t get that dirty, especially in the winter months. I wipe his butt and every other crevice “down there” so clean that the term “shiny hiney” is applicable every time I change his diaper. He hates to have sticky hands and always begs “wipe, mama” when he’s messy. He knows that it’s fun to make messes but doesn’t always like having the mess all over him. He will have the occasional stain on his shirt or the milk mustache that I have to wrestle with him to wipe off, but usually, he’s pretty clean. He loves bath time and only occasionally have I had to manipulate him to take one. After some negotiation he would go willingly after I’ve reminded him that “Buddy, it’s okay to stop playing with the toys in your room because you have some in the tub.” And that’s an understatement. There are a million bath toys in my bathtub. Seriously, take a look in there sometime. I counted them last night. Total number of actual bath toys, sixteen. There are five boats, four ducks, two whales, a snail, a seahorse, a butterfly, and two flower shaped things that act as fountains. No kidding. I don’t know where to put all of these toys when I myself take a bath, which is rare. My son has catalogued them in his brain so that if just one is missing, he will refuse a bath. We never take any toys out of the tub but somehow, more and more are added. The toys that took over our living room are slowly making their way into the bathtub. Soon my son will be a human island in a sea of bath toys, just the way he likes it. His bath time is such bliss. He loves to be stripped down and to run around naked before he gets into the tub. Once he’s in the tub any previous resistance is quickly forgotten. He loves to stay in the tub until the last drop of water goes down the drain. His sweet little shiny butt stares up at me, “Five more minutes” he’ll beg. He sings in the tub. He talks to his toys. He gets out after some coaxing and is wrapped up in the biggest, fluffiest towel. His pretty blue eyes peek out from under the towel and he clings tightly to his mama or dada to stay warm. Sweet, sweet bath time.
Nothing ruins pure and innocent moments like these worse than the mention of the word that makes every parent reach for the Wet Wipes: germs. Now I myself, being a relatively clean person, don’t freak out when it comes to germs. When I told my mother about how many bath toys my son has and how he can’t bathe without them, she gasped in horror as if I just told her he bathed in human waste. “Bath
I don’t want to be one of those mothers that thinks of her children as germ carrying, infectious diseases waiting to happen. I don’t want to ever picture the microscopic creepy crawlies on the surfaces of all the things my son puts in or has put in his mouth. I carry hand sanitizer but I admit, I don’t use the wipes at the grocery store to wipe down every inch of the contaminated cart before I sit my son down in it. When I was growing up, I don’t remember Purell ever touching my hands and I’m sure that my son could probably live without it now. I’ve heard reports that too much of that stuff will cause your kids immune systems to not fully develop. But then I’ve heard that not using it in at certain times will leave them vulnerable to catching all kinds of illnesses. What’s a parent to do? Kids are okay to eat dirt but they can’t play in it because they’ll get worms. Hand sanitizers help keep kids safe but at the same time hurt them. Good germs, bad germs, good dirt, bad dirt… it’s a good thing I try not to obsess over things, because the dirty work of parenthood is enough to make my head explode. If my head did explode, being the relatively clean person I am, maybe I’d clean up the bits of head today, or maybe I’d clean them tomorrow.
The bottom line is this, kids are dirty. And they make your house dirty. Whoever said that cleanliness was next to godliness had way too much time on his hands and obviously didn’t have any children. He didn’t understand that God is in the small things, like spending a few extra minutes tickling and laughing, playing and singing, or five more minutes in a tub full of putrid water-filled toys, enjoying those moments before they are gone forever…and letting the dishes wait until tomorrow.
So true Carrie! I often struggle with the same thing but I am definitely obsessive about germs sometimes. I was such a tomboy playing in the dirt but I now carry a never-ending supply of wipes and sanitizer for Aurilia and I. The funny thing is, I never cared about germs until Aurilia was about one and it was because I had to call in to work almost every single week because she couldn't go two weeks without contracting something at daycare. Daycare truly turned me into a germophobe! And I definitely developed full-blown OCD when Aurilia got yet another cold virus at 18 months that turned into pneumonia. So now I am riddled with both OCD and guilt because I hate pointing out germs to Aurilia and in turn making her obsessive too! Oh, the joys of parenting indeed.
ReplyDeleteAs far as baths were concerned, I wasn't as worried. Aurilia loved her baths more than anything too, and bath toys of course. I would just rinse them occasionally with some of her bath soap and I put them all in one of those net bags with the suction cup thingys afterward. I love your motto, "I'll do it tomorrow" and Adam even made up a whole silly song with the same title :-). My motto would have to be more along the lines of "I'll do it next week!"