I live in a house full of people who seem to think I live to clean up after them. Sometimes, I don’t mind.  They have places to go and work to do and I chose the life of a stay at home mom and caregiver.  But, other times, I want to take all their dirty dishes, laundry and messes and throw them out the window.

I certainly don’t expect perfection.  Any noticeable efforts would suffice. This is not to say that I wouldn’t suggest further improvements.  Dream big, I always say.

I wake almost every morning to a kitchen that looks it have been pillaged by vikings. (I’m not sure how Viking pillaging differs from your garden variety pillaging but you get the idea.) Dishes and garbage and puddles and mail cover the counter.  The giant white sink looks like a turtle has been living there. The garbage is way past needing to be emptied and it seems a non slip surface has been applied to the floor.  I know that I cleaned up this same mess at least three times yesterday.

I know several people who would be horrified that I didn’t clean it up before my head hit the pillow last night.  I get to a point in the evening when I have nothing left to give to that day. All I can do at that point is stare at the tv or go to sleep so I do. All the kids are fed and clean, the babies are in bed and that is a pretty big accomplishment on its own. Waking up to a clean house would perhaps lead me to believe that I had been transported to an alternate reality.

The kitchen mess also breeds and travels.  I find all kinds of disgusting things in my kids rooms. They seemingly have no concern for the fact that they are creating the perfect habitat for any number of vermin or insects. I find banana peels, cereal bowls, hot chocolate mugs and stuff on plates that are no longer recognizable. You would think that the funky odor would induce a search and destroy mission but apparently becoming “nose blind” is a real thing.  I periodically put out a call for dishes when there a shortage of glasses and bowls occurs in the kitchen.  Several of my children have to make several trips to collect them all.  I have a strong belief, as a parent, that kids should have to clean up there own messes.  I keep hoping that my kids’ standards will improve but so far… no dice.

Then there are the piles … odds and ends of stuff that, apparently, doesn’t belong to anyone.  I collect these items from hither and yon and put them on the kitchen table.  The idea is that everyone takes their own stuff and leave a clean table.  My family seems to have some sort of amnesia about what they bring into the house.  It’s either that or there are people living here that I don’t know about.  There are items in this collection that no one can identify.  It’s hard to know who something belongs to if you don’t even know what it is.  The fear is that two days after one of these useless items gets thrown away, one of memory challenged will appear desperately seeking said item. It’s a risky business.

I can walk into any room in the house and see things that need to be picked up, cleaned up, or wiped down.  I wish I could shut this magic power off for a while.  It must be my own personal magic power because no one else in my house has it.  Although, I have seen it pop up temporarily in children who want something. Somehow, it goes away shortly after the goal item is obtained. It would be so liberating to be able to ignore the mess once in awhile without guilt.  Often, I can’t summon up the energy to complete the task, but it still nags at me, taking the fun out of the ignoring.  Better yet, if I could give this magic power away to the person of my choosing.  Every day would be Mothers Day.

I know that I am not alone in this struggle against all things sticky and gross.  Try as I might, I know that this is a battle that I cannot win but I cannot give up the fight.  I will continue to walk along behind and tidy and straighten and clean in order to maintain my own sanity knowing that someday, some of these kids will have there own houses and children and they will get their own Vikings, vermin and magic powers.