Crumbs

As I prepared for company to come over this past week, it always brings to the front of my mind the ongoing to-do list that comes with owning a fixer-upper. Of course, maybe that to-do list exists with home ownership of any kind. Anyway, when I host company, I truly enjoy it. I love entertaining and I love sharing our home with friends. I love hosting dinners and having an excuse to make lavish meals. I do find however, that I can let my joy be diminished by the small things I notice around the house. The bare foot prints all over my freshly mopped floor, the doggy nose marks on my clean windows, the fact that every closet I open seems to contain a surprise of some sort placed there by one child or another. I used to dedicate the day of company coming to a full on cleaning spree. However, now that I work outside the home, I try to spread the cleaning out over the course of the week so I don't feel overwhelmed all in one day with the cleaning and the cooking that needs to happen. But, here's the real deal. Life happens in this house every day. Every day spills, every day the dog goes outside and back in again, every day my three kids run around bare foot on my wood floors because heaven forbid socks stay on their feet for longer than 30 seconds after entry. Every day we eat, and get crumbs inevitably all over the kitchen and dining room. Every night we sleep and wrinkle our beds, every day we add to the bathroom contamination. Every. Single. Day.

Here's what else happens....Years ago, I used to be able to clean the house during nap time. In one fell swoop I could run around and tidy most rooms in the house while toddlers slept peacefully tucked in their little beds and unable to disturb anything. That cannot happen anymore and it leaves me in a bit of a conundrum. While I clean these days, the kids are walking, running, jumping through every other room in the house. They're building forts, they're playing with their toys, they're reading books, and in order to do the latter each and every book must be removed from the book basket, of course. We all have the same obstacles in our way, right?

And...here's what else. My children aren't just older and no longer nap, they're older and more independent and want to pour their milk, they want to get themselves a snack, they want to find it, reach it, open it, ALL BY THEMSELVES. And these are things I want them to learn. These are things they need to learn. But in order for three children to be adequately prepared for the adulthood necessity of pouring milk, they must also be responsible for learning how to clean up after said mess, are you with me?

This brings me to my realization as I scrambled around the house last week grabbing this and that and tidying and wiping and straightening, that I suddenly stopped. I stopped right there in front of the linen closet, took a deep breath as I looked at the crumpled sheets shoved onto the shelf and realized that it was okay. It was okay that the shelves weren't orderly and straight like I would have done it. Whichever kid had been tasked with putting the folded sheets away, had done it the best they could. It's okay that my windows had a few marks where my daughter had wiped them in her attempt to clean. It's okay that there are mysterious marks on my couch, and the chairs at the kitchen island and crumbs under my table where my son didn't quite reach while he swept.

It's okay, because we're all learning in this house every single day. We're learning as we spill and as we clean, we're learning as we dance around in our bare feet on the wood floor making all kinds of marks. We're learning as we cook, eat and share a meal and then proceed to clean it up. We're learning how to do life. The kids are learning how to pour, measure, cook and clean and I'm learning how to have patience, how to explain things, how to love them. I'm learning how to be a mom who recognizes what really matters. So come on over to our fixer upper-come on over and enjoy the marks and the spills and the crumbs and all the fun that learning through this life brings!