Have you ever walked into one of those houses where everything is neat? Perhaps your own house is neat and clean and tidy. There is no clutter. The floors sparkle. There are no cobwebs on the ceilings in those hard to reach corners. The couch looks new. There are no water bottles half empty on the table. The toys are all in bins, maybe even with all the pieces. There are no dishes in the sink, no clothes in the washer starting to smell because they still haven’t been put into the dryer. There are no curious and unknown sticky liquids inside the bottom of the refrigerator. Shoes are only on the mat by the door. Coats are hung up in the hallway. There is not even little boy pee on the toilet seat. I have seen these houses. I have had playdates in these houses. I have gone to parties in these houses. My house is not one of them. If your house is neat and clean and tidy, I am truly happy for you. I just have no idea how you do it. Do you have children? Does your spouse/mom/dad/etc. help you? Are your children older and moved out? Can you afford a cleaning service? I dream of my house someday being one of these dust bunny free spaces. I try hard to achieve it. But, for now, we do messy.

I have four kids. I am a single mom. I would like to think that I am rocking this gig just based on the fact that my children are fed and clothed and have wifi. However, things are messy. The house is messy. We have stuff. No matter how much I seem to throw away, it seems like it just keeps coming out of no where. We have busy, messy lives. This leaves me minimal time for cleaning. Speaking of messy lives… We do not do anything seamlessly. There is nothing graceful about our messy life. We lay out everything for school the night before, but inevitably the morning is rushed. We oversleep or someone can’t find breakfast or their shoes or both. We do screaming and hurrying and oh-so-messy to get out the door for school and work. I take the back roads to try to make it faster and avoid traffic while we check the clock. Then I drop the high schooler off with just enough time for her to fly to class and not be marked late. We finish doing drop offs and I get my messy ‘have a good day’ kisses and get back in the very messy car. Yes, the car… I get in other vehicles sometimes and they are so clean. It’s like a witch must own it. There is nothing sticky in the door handle. There is no moldy food stuck to the floor in the backseat. There are no empty water bottles that fall out when they open the door. A witch…my only explanation. I drive to work in my messy car and tell myself I really need a trash bag and 5 minutes to clean this up. I work at 3 different gyms. Also, those 4 kids I have, yeah they go to 3 different schools in 2 different towns. So I drive and drive and drive (in my messy car). I get home sometimes with time to shower or eat lunch before I need to start to pick everyone up in the afternoon. As I look for lunch, I realize I haven’t gotten groceries in a while. I figure out what to eat, but it is a messy process. I shower as fast as I can, thinking that maybe it will give me time to clean something. It rarely does. After school is as messy as it can get. Pick one up at 2:20, next one at 4, then onto the 3rd. They get in the messy car and head to our messy house. I yell about not leaving backpacks right in front of the doorway. I ask them to please not be so messy. It doesn’t matter. I walk in and trip over shoes that could have just as easily gone on the shoe mat as they did in the middle of the kitchen. They’re hungry and want a snack even though I’m going to start supper. Oh and I should mention the microwave broke! Try living without a microwave with 4 kiddos. Two words: pioneer days. I listen to their stories about the day they have had. They all talk at once. Its very messy. Then they fight. Again. And again. And again. Sometimes I wish I could just tie them together and hose them down. Would still be messy, just more fun, at least for me. We figure out dinner. I get the boys showered, uniforms laid out, lunch boxes packed. I start to put food away from dinner and clean up when I get the text from my oldest (but not messiest) child. She is on her way back from the away game and needs me to go pick her up. By now I have changed my clothes and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere, but Walmart. Out the door I go again! About 45 minutes later I am back home. I tuck the rest of the crew in, stare at the dishes (which I hate!) and walk upstairs. They’ll be there tomorrow. They always are!

It’s not just the day to day that’s messy. Our normal outings or adventures always look chaotic and crazy to outsiders. After all, it is again quite messy, but it’s how we do it and it works. Take, for example, when we go to the movies. My only saving grace is being able to get the tickets and seats ahead of time online. This way, when we are late, we don’t miss as much or, hopefully, just the previews. There is one large popcorn and small plastic cups. Each person gets their own cup that I fill for them and pass down. Pretty much I spend movies filling cups of popcorn until they slow down. Don’t ask me what happened at the beginning of a movie, but I do love that, after I finally decompress, I always see the end! I do love the movies. It is usually the one place where eventually, after everyone gets their popcorn, candy, and drinks, they are all calm and interested and I can sit and relax.

A strong family should always make sure they communicate with each other. We are absolutely a strong family and we definitely communicate. It is almost always messy. There is problem solving (one kid stealing the remote for a turn). There is mediating (she said this, he did that). There is taking responsibility (I saw HER do it Mommy!). There is decision making (I don’t want THAT for dinner). There is yelling to get a point across. Eventually, there is calm, forgiveness, and peace on earth (for 5 minutes).

I would like to think that, at some point, every one of us has had a “messy” life. I wasn’t always like this, after all. I’m in the trenches. This is survival. This is how it’s getting done for this chapter of MY book of life. It works for us. It may sound all bad, but it’s really not. There are pluses to this messy chapter. After all, I would never trade in those wonderfully, sloppy, messy little boy kisses that I get over and over again.