call me adolf

my little blue-faced wild girl who is happiest when covered in filth of one kind or another.

All of this newfound responsibility and maturity (that has come, for me, with having a baby) has two faces. The one is wise and learning and reliable and constant. The other is crotchety and anal-retentive and boring.

I spent a long long time cleaning the house yesterday only to have someone want a sandwich! And they wanted me to make it! In the newly cleaned kitchen!! Crumbs soon covered the clean floor and bits of mayonnaise-covered bread were flung from the high-chair. And instead of laughing and saying, you silly baby, I clenched my jaw and my stomach locked up and I thought, MY CLEAN FLOOOOOOORS!!!

And Nathan came in from rolling in the dirt with wrenches and power tools and with each step I could see little puffs of dried dust and dirt and grass escape his clothes and settle on the floor. I decided to refrain from telling him very loudly with hands on hips, I JUST MOPPED RIGHT THERE, and go for the more subtle approach - pulling out the broom and urgently sweeping up his tracks. Completely oblivious he moved into the kitchen and pulled out...some CHIPS! CHIPS!!!! ON A FRESHLY MOPPED FLOOR!! I felt an ulcer forming on my stomach.

Which is when I realized, I'm a much nicer person when my house is dirty. Stella can practice her baseball pitch with a cup of cheerios, Nathan can stomp around with muddy boots and I don't even bat an eyelash. When my house is dirty I can appreciate it for what it is - a place to live and eat and play and get comfortable. Not to be confused with a tediously polished museum relic that must be protected from every speck of dirt and germ.

Nathan says there's a bigger issue at hand here. Namely, the impulse to nail everything neatly in place once some measure of order and comfortability is achieved so that there's no possibility of loss.

To that I say, I'm sure I'd be cured if YOU took over the cleaning.