(via)

Trying to “clean”, “organize”, “put in piles”, “do laundry”, “start dinner” (or should I say “complete dinner”), “respond to emails”, and overall “keep a clean, and warm, and inviting home”

somedays proves to be a challenge. 

Oh, shucks, I’ll just be honest, EVERYDAY proves to be a challenge. 

Some days we encounter minor hiccups. 

Some days we face major meltdowns. 

Totally par for the course.
Subject Lines on My Job Description.
Part of being a mama. 

While I have friends who have children who play happily while their mothers shower
(mine prefers shooting shaving gel all over herself and splashing in the stall with me),
and enjoy really participating in the laundry process (rather than completely destroying the progress I have made), I have semi-come to terms with the fact that this is not my child.

Meet Mine.

She prefers constant activity (the apple doesn’t fall far from the apple tree), and if she were to choose a “acceptable” activity while I go about day to day “house becoming a home” business, she would choose parking herself in front of our large TV downstairs, with the iPad in her hand and my iPhone in the other.
Speaking of Apple.
For the Love. 

Her Happy Techy Place.

So, finding things to do to “keep her busy” while I’m trying to survive beautify our home, sometimes feels like planning a sweet sixteen party. 

And not those mellow ones, I’m speaking more along the lines of the kinds you see on MTV.

And speaking of MTV, lets talk about my crib.
And my content battle to keep this place not only looking livable, but feeling lovable as well.

Survival Items.

While some would prescribe to the parenting perspective of encouraging Samantha towards more imaginative play or possibly more independent play, I would say spend thirty minutes in my shoes, and you help come up with solutions to my anti-craft, water obsessed child.

As my brother put it this morning after spending an hour with Samantha, stealing the words completely out of his mouth,
“I am already ready for a nap”.

In my quiet reflections (rare), I sometimes have a good chuckle with the Lord about this sweet dear gift He gave me.

She is so much like me its haunting, and her bent towards all my favorite things (and personality power struggles) proves both the Lord’s sense of humor as well as His desire to develop character in me. 

Most challenging thing?

Raising a child just like yourself.

You see all the good & bad through a magnifying glass!

Mini-Me. Yes, that is “war-paint” on her cheeks from our “Paint, Paste & Pour Class” Before Nap Time..

Yesterday, I attempted some major (three hours of inside time) upstairs & downstairs cleaning. For as little as my little person is, she sure knows how to make a larger than life mess. 

I used the Molly Maid approach, of cleaning room to room.
(Is that their approach? If not, I’m claiming it). 

I would shut the door once the room had been quickly groomed. 

The problem was realizing I forgot something in one room, and leaving and coming back to the other to  find books tossed over the ocean of clean carpet, folded clothes spread amuck, and cherrios being splashed with her water bottle.

Occupying the Outside.

We finally moved downstairs after the upstairs had been cleaned as best as it was going to get and Samantha quickly re-discovered the bag of freeze-dried-trader-joes-blueberries.
Seriously?!!

This Mama’s one word of advice when your child asks for a bag in the store:

They stain like crazy, they die everything in sight, and create for a big, BLUE mess. 

So, while un-loading and re-loading the dishwasher, I decided to give into this willy wonka like desire.
It was a mess.
Mess+Mess=
Looky Here…MORE MESS.

Solution. Go PLAY OUTSIDE.
Heck, Occupy if for all I care.
Pitch a tent, and get comfy.

What…Its cold??

She spent the better part of the next half hour post-blue’s pouring water all over our backyard and sitting in her pink pool fully clothed in 65 degree temperatures.

Don’t Judge.

When mama’s say that desperate times call for desperate measures, this my friends was one of these times. 

I was super set on getting another load in the wash, and the preceding load folded. 

It was one of those days where a really clean house, won out. 

FINALLY.
(Says my internal monologue and externally my hubby replied that I am sure).

I have fought the battle before, and the opposite usually rings true.
Just let it be, I tell myself. 

And, that, is an exercise for me, as well, in letting go.
Daily.

Not everything always has to be super perfect and squeakily clean.

But sometimes, its a gosh darn treat to look around and see everything put in there proper spot. 

It brings peace to my soul and a smile to my hubby’s face. 

I appreciate these little things. 

When you “work from home” as I do,
there is a sense of overall peace to this place when its not a pig-pen.

For once, I was set on “getting-her-done” and figuring out anything and everything to occupy this child to achieve the House turning into Home affect. 

I leaned into it yesterday, and Molly Maid rubbed off on me a bit, 

and I became a bit more Haley Homemaker.  

Sometimes, to get “things” done, other “things” have to be let go of. 

And while other days, somethings have to be “let go of” for the sake of sanity and our children’s sake’s.
I choose Sanity Yesterday, yup, I admit it.
So the sanity for squeaky clean got in a fight with a toddling toddler, and I think we both won judging by the look on her face sitting in her pink pool with clothes at 4 p.m. yesterday.

By the time five p.m. rolls around today, you will probably see only little bits and pieces of Molly Maid’s lasting remnants around here. (Maybe I will shut the door to my master & block off the living room).
Yes, yes, that’s a good solution. 

You will probably more likely see new little “mess’s”-
dishes stacked up prepared with dinner ingredients, loud music playing (my daughter’s preference), water being poured on something, the playroom happily re-cluttered by our daughter, our driveway being covered in chalk, and the washer and dryer humming with yet again another load of wash to be cleaned and clothes to be folded.

Molly Maid will have long disappeared and Merry Mama will be laughing, leaning into the new piles to clean, clothes to fold, dishes to wash, floor to scrub, and trash to be taken out.

And as I remember lovingly standing in the doorway overlooking a perfectly cleaned home last night, I will look around tonight among the mess, (God Bless IT), and do my best to remember that living is better than cleaning, and life is really all about the hands at my table.

The hands of my HOT :), hardworking hubby I love so much, and the stained blueberry hands of my water-infatuated daughter.

Hands.

My hands, give life to their hands.
Yes, all that scrubbing, changing, holding, cuddling, touching, being, gives them life. 
Their hands give life to mine.
They remind me what’s important, what to hold on to, and what to let go of. 


Even when their hands turn merry mama into molly maid.
God Bless Them.
Seriously.


Because ultimately, I wouldn’t be merry or a mama without them.

On second thought, maybe Merry Mama has a thing or two to teach Molly Maid.

xoxo
Merry Mama