Motherhood is messy.
There’s no denying that, although we moms spend lots of time and money
trying to hide that truth. And
motherhood is messy in all the ways that are encompassed by the word
“messy.” I tend to think of the term in
the sense of untidy or dirty, but “messy” also means confused, muddled,
chaotic, disorganized, confused, cluttered, disordered, and in disarray. I can’t think of a better word to capture my
experience as a mom.
Motherhood is messy from the actual childbirth, which is
messy both in the sense that a lot of cleanup is required after and in the
chaotic, confused, meaning of the term.
And I’m guessing that motherhood will continue to be messy right until the
day you ship that kiddo off to college only to realize there are 18 years of
dust bunnies and old mementos stuck under their bed at home.
My early parenting days were filled with spit up,
spilled bottles, leaky boobs, and of course, baby poop. Anyone who has never lost sleep analyzing the
frequency, color, and texture of another person’s bowel movements is clearly
not a mom. When you have a baby, your
house is a mess. There are baby toys and
equipment everywhere, diapers, wipes, onesies, bibs, and so forth, but there’s
also all the non-baby stuff that is just all sprawled out everywhere simply
because you don’t have the time or energy to pick up.
The mom of the baby is also necessarily a mess. I remember the day I thought I had it all
together as I returned to work only to realize halfway through the day that the
rancid smell I’d noticed several times was dried spit up caked over the back of
my shoulder from that last hug I stole before leaving the house. I had milk stains on many of my shirts and on
more than one occasion, I actually had baby poop somewhere on my clothes or
person.
When I just had one infant, I assumed the mess would
improve as my child grew. It didn’t. To be sure, the mess changed. The toddler
years brought much less spit up, but more spills and, although I wouldn’t have
thought it possible, even more poop. I realized that, whereas the chaos of a
baby could at least be contained as long as you could physically strap the
infant in a carseat, there are days where nothing can contain a willful,
independent toddler. As a mom of a toddler, I was always running behind. Some
days, it was because she needed to do “it” by herself, the “it” changing day to
day but generally involving getting dressed, making breakfast, tying shoes, or
some other developmentally impossible task. Other days, I was late because I
had finally found a moment of peace—the baby napping, the toddler happily
playing or watching TV, and I couldn’t stand the thought of ending it a moment
too soon. As a toddler mom, I am also constantly one step behind. As my toddler
begins to wreak havoc on the playroom, I’m still picking up the cheerios she
upended in the pantry. By the time she moves on to play-doh, I’m still
re-creating the Lego tower masterfully crafted by her sisters that she knocked
over while twirling in the playroom.
As my oldest reached preschool, the mess changed again.
Now she was old enough to not only create messes, but to create an even bigger
mess by attempting to clean up on her own. By elementary school, the mess began
to include dozens of papers brought home each day which my kids mourn like lost
puppies when they are recycled. Of course it doesn’t help that as my oldest
reaches this new phase of messiness, I still have children in the preschool,
toddler, and baby stages of mess.
Suffice it to say, I’ve given up. I mean, I’ll still
spend hours each week wiping the same dirty counters, picking up the same toys,
tidying the same fort walls formerly known as my couch pillows, and sanitizing
the same area on the floor around the toilet. But for the next eighteen years,
I’m just going to embrace the mess. I’ll keep trying to be on time. I’ll keep
trying to have a car that doesn’t look like a trash can spilled in it. And of
course I’ll keep trying to figure out some master plan for controlling the
chaos in my house and brain, but I doubt I’ll succeed at any of that. Why? Because
motherhood is messy and that’s just how it is supposed to be. Just as it takes
our children eighteen years to grow and figure out their place in the world as
adults, it takes us moms the same amount of time to grow and figure out our
place in the world as moms.
I still on occasion notice another mom whose kids are
wearing weather-appropriate, matching clothes, who is arriving on time to
preschool, and who has clearly showered and put real clothes on herself, and I
wonder how she has it so together. Then,
I can’t help but wonder if I’ve ever come across to anyone as that mom who has
it all together. Well, on the off chance
that’s the case, here’s the truth: I am a mess.
My kids almost always look like they got dressed in the dark. Some weeks they only get one bath. I’m never on time to anyplace anymore. I can’t remember the last time I showered in
the morning. I abuse coffee and diet
coke to compensate for lack of sleep. On
more than one occasion, I’ve awoken in the morning and found popcorn stuck in my
nursing bra from my bedtime snack.
I swear like a sailor, spend nights worrying over the
dumbest things, and have actually driven past my own house more than once
because I’m so tired or distracted. I
can eat an entire bag of jelly beans without a belly ache and only feel a
little guilty when I enter all 8 servings into My Fitness Pal. If you come over and my kitchen looks clean,
I promise you the laundry room, mudroom, and/or loft are overflowing with crap.
So what? This is the mess that comes with four amazing
little girls. It’s my mess and I love it.
