Motherhood: A Fine Line Between Humility & Humiliation

Just when I am starting to feel confident in my abilities as a mother or simply as a human being, my child will wipe a booger in my hair as I am tripping over a Lego. Just today I finally got ahead of the laundry only to open the washing machine and find that my oldest took it upon herself to change her nap time diaper by disposing of it in her hamper—which naturally ended up in the wash.

I’m going to go ahead and put it out there; many of the most dangerous and challenging moments in parenthood take place when I need to use the bathroom. I could probably rename my blog: Tales from the Toilet, but I'm not sure the kind of crowd I'd attract. These are the times when my children have stuck a bean in their nose, licked hand-sanitizer and attempted to ride the dog. Recently, on one such occasion I was cleaning our home for the 10 millionth time in two weeks. I thought I’d take a second to answer the call of nature when just over my head I heard the sound of tiny feet. I peered out from my seated position to see my oldest sitting peacefully on the couch, which left my only other offspring as the one venturing up the stairs (when she is not yet steady enough to be on the stair unattended). As a two-story home owner I can tell you, I’ve had nightmares about my children on the stairs, so I barreled out of the bathroom as pantsless as the day my children were born. I managed to catch my daughter at the top of the stairs, but didn’t pay any attention to my attire for the next few hours, since I was just so relieved she didn’t hurt herself.

After dropping my kids with my mom, I managed to finish cleaning. I was outside emptying the trash, mentally remarking on just how glamorous my life had become when my (male) neighbor (stay with me, I swear it's relevant) pulled up congratulating us on the sold sign on our front lawn. I told him about our plans to move and I went on to boast of our good fortune buying for the first time at the bottom of the market- even managing to throw around a fancy word like "equity". I wandered inside happy to have a second of adult interaction and it was in that moment I realized I had tucked my shirt into my plainly visible underwear. Now one might think this would be embarrassing, but see this is just a typical Tuesday for anybody with children.

In motherhood, we are constantly walking a fine line between humility and humiliation. My hope for you is always the former, but don’t be surprised when inevitably you get caught with your pants down.

I tell myself they are not laughing at me, but with me 😂

How to Clean your House with Kids

Obviously if it has come to this, you must be desperate and your attempts to hold car washes and bake sales to hire that live-in maid or sisterwife you’ve begged your husband for have failed. You have my deepest sympathy.

Step 1:

Lower your expectations. Your house will probably always smell like peanut butter. And there are no Pinterest boards that match a basket of stuffed animals with your French country décor, I've looked.

I don’t want to brag, but in the past week I’ve earned my Girl Scout merit badge in Good Housekeeping, when everyday my realtor texted requesting showing after showing. I’d answer from within a pillow fort while simultaneously picking crayon flecks out of the carpet and my child’s teeth. Needless to say my house just doesn’t happen to be clean at 3pm on a Tuesday, it takes some serious effort.

Even in the wake of careful planning your filthy dog may still find a way to dig out of the neighbor’s yard and come to your front door in the middle of your open house, while peeing on the welcome mat as a way of welcoming those potential buyers to their new home (true story).

Step 2:

Temporarily hand off your children and dogs to achieve a temporarily clean home. Post pictures of them on social media skipping in meadows or helping the homeless in hopes that someone will offer to take them off your hands for an hour.

Aren't they adorable?

Step 3:

Confuse your kids into thinking that cleaning is the same as going to Disneyland, using high pitched vocal intonations reserved for sorority sleep overs. When that fails, you’d be amazed what your kids will do for gummy bears.

Step 4:

Resolve that threatening to run away to Mexico if you have to pick up the toilet brush one more time is not a real solution. Cleaning is part of your past, present and future. Lastly and most importantly, even if you consider yourself a part of a highly evolved equal partnership, whichever way the cookie crumbles someone will ultimately have to vacuum it up.

EXCUSE ME, YOUR HOUSE IS SHOWING

On a scale of 1 to ridiculous, trying to show your house to sell, when you have two dogs and two toddlers is giraffe. What, that doesn’t make any sense? Yeah, neither does saying “please stop licking the couch with a mouth full of popsicle” for the fourth time in a row, but this is my life now. Let me start by saying that my family is incredibly blessed. We are moving from our big beautiful home, into another big beautiful home and every day I pinch myself (or rather my kids do that) just to make sure I’m not dreaming. No part of this is me complaining, but attempting to clean and organize at the level you need to while your house is on the market, with a house full of squirrelly children is like brushing your teeth while eating a box of Oreos.

The only time my kids are not making a mess, is when they are restrained in their car seats or sleeping. My threshold for what I used to consider chaotic, would now be a welcomed trip to the spa, as this process has quickly become my 5th child. On the plus side, I’m happy to report I’ve reached a new level of responsible adult, I now have to make my bed daily, something I haven’t done since my allowance depended on it. My to-do list starts with not letting my kids wipe their snot on the white towels and ends with picking up doggie landmines in the backyard. To make matters even more challenging, my youngest is in the "Mama" stage so anytime I even attempt to do anything resembling productivity it looks exactly like this...

I also need to paint the picture of our two dogs, remember them? Don’t worry, I forgot too until I realized they would bark incessantly at any visitors taking a tour and somehow a yapping dog doesn’t exactly translate to “welcome to your new home”. They are our original babies, but boy did we drop the ball on training them properly. Our Cocker Spaniel is so cute that if she were to run away, someone would definitely keep her and our Beagle just wants to go wherever there is food (one of Charlotte’s first sentences was “Lola is fat”). Anytime there is a gate or door open they have escaped out of here faster than you can say, What is the opposite of Homeward Bound? Our amazing neighbor is letting us keep them in her backyard during showings, otherwise I would have “accidentally” left our front door open the night Lola decided to eat an entire lasagna while standing on our kitchen table.  

We haven’t even begun to enter the world of packing, and pulling things out of boxes is actually one of my kid’s favorite activities, so stay tuned for that part of our epic adventure. I hope I continue to find humor and strength in-between my sessions of curling up in the fetal position in our perfectly color coordinated walk-in closet.