Motherhood the Mess

 

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.