Believe me,
It won't be fine.
By the way, this is actually cleaned up;
this represents 2 solid hours of nagging.
Kids are messy. But not the stock-photo-messy I was picturing before I had kids, with this happy family of four playing a board game at a coffee table with 3 cups and 1 plate on it, in an otherwise immaculate room, with all of them laughing, their blindly white teeth gleaming, as the youngest gleefully knocks over a bowl of popcorn and 3 pieces fall onto the brand new Ikea shag carpet. Nope. Those folks aren't coming. I mean, you are gonna wish they would pretty much every day of your parenthood because kids are messy like this:
1. Peanut Butter smeared onto the sliding glass door, on the surrounding walls, down the side of the couch, and still quite firmly embedded in their hair.
2. Slime they made on a sleepover and somehow got into your house and hid under their pillow and it leaked onto the floor and a sibling stepped in it and dragged bits of it all the way down the hallway like Satan's version of Footprints in the Sand.
3. Poop in the bathtub.
4. You are holding them because they aren't feeling well and you are doing your best Florence Nightingale, cooing and calming like an angel of mercy, when suddenly they rear back and vomit. Right into your mouth.
5. Playing treasure hunt with Grandma's good silver and the cat litter.
6. Making all the paper dolls anatomically correct.
7. Stains of unknown origin that never leave your carpet and an odor you swear you got rid of but always returns just in time for a playdate with a new mom.
8. Urine on the ceiling.
9. You will think diapers are gross, but within 2 weeks, you'll be able to do them blindfolded, one-handed, on the roof of a car. And then, your child will need to be potty trained and a whole Pandora's Box of gross will open up for you and you alone.
10. Legos.
The Ghost of Stains yet to Come.
And these are just the physical messes. Parenthood contains so much emotional mess it's like your most intense therapy session ever mashed up with the season finale of Game of Thrones set during the Christmas that your dog gave birth to puppies. And there is no escaping it; mess is indeed coming.
Because even if you are totally cool with the smells and the poop and the utter lack of control and the legos, nothing is gonna save you from having to deal with other parents. That's when things really start to get messy. We like to call them the parent judging minefields because they are gonna pop up out of nowhere! So have fun with that.
You see, you are gonna try not to judge. You are gonna try not to be judged. You are gonna think everything is just great; it's 2018 and we're all a glorious sisterhood! And we are! We are also very messy.
You give birth and settle on your Infant Trifecta; you decide to be a breastfeeding, cloth diapering, bassinet in the bedroom. You keep some friends from your pre-baby days, even though Bree has decided to be a formula using, disposable diapering, cry it out; your friendship is strong and can withstand anything. Delta Zeta Forever! And here's the thing; your friendship with Bree is strong enough, you two will agree to disagree and drink wine together while Zander and Rainn eat dirt under the swing set. The judging you are gonna have to deal with is between you and Gretchen, the crunchy mom you met in your Attachment Parenting Group. Because she's a breastfeeding, elimination training, family bed. Which doesn't seem that far off from your breastfeeding, cloth diapering, bassinet, but it might as well be light years. You two are gonna have playdates more awkward than Thanksgiving between the Koreas.
Seriously. I know; it's so messy! There are deep emotional reasons for it; you are young and passionate in your parenthoods when you meet, you don't have the deep roots that your friendship with Bree has so the winds are rougher, familiarity breeds contempt, the crunchy moms tend to like to argue and do it really well, on and on. As you both grow in your motherhoods, you will power through. Or you won't and decide to only do drop-off playdates. (Remember, only organic when Mikkel is over.) You'll figure it out and get through the parent judging minefields. Just in time for more mess!
Not into sports? Get ready for your daughter to be the next Lionel Messi! Not terribly good at math? Here's come your son; the math whizz! Not a girly-girl? Have fun with your child, who won't go to school unless she has an Elsa braid. Or you could have my son, who decided awkward, barefaced, jeans-loving me should have to deal with dance moms for the rest of my parenting years. We call it the Alex P. Keaton phenomenon.
Your child is not your clone. You know this but you won't know it in your heart of hearts until they do a back one-and-a-half somersaults tuck off the community pool high dive as you splash your toes in the kiddie pool. You won't feel it until you are having the older one do math homework with the younger one. You won't truly get it until you sneak in the back of the auditorium because you don't want to have to talk to other moms and your daughter is center stage, dancing a routine she choreographed, set to Bitch I'm Madonna. And you won't be able to really enjoy any of it until you accept it. (Not the Madonna. You do you, music wise.)
And that's the key, acceptance. Phyllis Diller said "cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing," and she's right. You are just gonna have to do it again later. And again. And again. Times number of children. Times 18. Yikes. I think I'll just get snowed in. Yeah, let's do that.
No, I am not recommending that you give up entirely. I mean, go ahead if you feel like it, but folks are nosy and someone will probably send the Hoarders producers over there before long. We all have to do dishes and wash the floors on occasion. Kids do need clean underwear, no matter what your 9-year-old tells you. And hey, if the stock-photo-mess people live at your house and you have read this whole thing vomiting into your mouth because you can't believe how disgusting we all are, then that's awesome! No sarcasm, I really think that's cool. However, you are still gonna have to deal with the parent judging minefields and the Alex P. Keatons; sorry, there's no getting around emotional mess. And there's no stock-photo for it either.
Oh wait, there is!
Look at her emotionally distressed white couch! So messy....
Is that a handgun amid the clean clothes that are pretending to be dirty?
What is going on with you stock-photo-folks?!
I don't really have a point here. That's how messy blog posts are. If I did have a point, it would be that a little mess never killed anyone. Fighting and denying and stressing and trying to make people behave against their nature does kill people. It slowly kills their relationships and it kills their souls and causes them to not see the beauty around them. So, I guess I'm totally contradicting myself because I started this whole thing by saying that it wouldn't be fine when in actuality it will be fine. A little acceptance of a little mess. Or a lot acceptance of a lot mess. Whatever is happening over there, just give in or up a little and you will be amazed at the beauty that opens up before your eyes. Flowers growing in a sidewalk crack beauty. Kids playing together in a pile of toys beauty. Moms coming together to support their kids beauty. Accepting your child for who he or she is because you can't imagine the world without their unique shine beauty. Lots and lots of beauty, just beyond the massive mess.
Kids are messy and we think we are OK with the mess. And we are.
