I am happiest when things are neatly organized. Surfaces don’t have to be bare, but I want them to be intentional in some way: if there are three photo frames on a table, then there are three. But if a pen, a sheet of paper, or a dog treat is not meant to be there, then I want them removed.
Things naturally pile up. Mail comes in, groceries come in, boxes go to recycling, checks get written—everyday activity means there is an ebb and flow to the integrity of the house and its sanitation fields.
The Manual did not mention that kids do not care about this. Toys and sippy cups and their associates migrate throughout the house. There are days when every truck, car, plastic doughnut, and building block wind up on our coffee table. Other times we can’t find a sippy cup anywhere on the property. It is maddening.
The kitchen and dining table form the heart of our house, where we spend most of our nonsleeping hours. Matthew is the center of attention, of course. Matthew is the source of disorganization and more importantly, he is a carrier.
We are lucky in this house to have an enormous, walk-in pantry. Each wall has deep shelves, four shelves high, with plenty of room from the top shelf (which I can barely reach) to the ceiling (which I can barely see). Matthew likes to play in there and slowly, the lower two shelves have vacated themselves in favor of the top two shelves. It’s not intentional at all—you just have to know that the oils and vinegars that used to be in their own space on the second shelf now occupy whatever space they can fit into on the third shelf. And thus we have shelves with stuff, but not anything approaching organization. I twitch a little every time I go in there.
Matthew cannot help that things fall out of his hands. He simply doesn’t have the fine motor control or the dexterity to keep stuff off the floor. Whether he’s being squired around in his stroller or walking around the house or sitting in his high chair, there is no question that there is a debris field around him. We sweep a lot.
I have to laugh a little (ha ha in a sad way, not ha ha in a funny, light-hearted way) at how our standards have changed. It used to be that if something fell to the floor, then it immediately went to the trash. I come by this honestly: my parents are (were) sticklers for being neat.1 Just yesterday, Matthew dropped a piece of chicken on the floor. Curtis scooped it up. “Five-second rule!” he sang and put it back on Matthew’s plate. I literally laughed out loud. At our house, it’s more like a six-hour rule; if you can find it, you can eat it. It doesn’t matter if the dogs licked it first. I simply don’t have the energy to police food availability to some five-second window of time.
I am old enough to remember watching Phyllis Diller on prime time TV. Part of her schtick involved two topics: her husband, Fang, who had only one front tooth; and her housekeeping skills. I remember laughing at her hilarious observation: “I’m not saying my kitchen is dirty. But I once watched a fly skid to its death in my greasy sink.” Now that’s not so much funny as it is observational.
On Monday, my brother John came to visit. He was in town for a work trade show and we don’t get enough time to see one another, so it’s always great to see him.
Before he arrived, I had swept and mopped and scrubbed and cleaned. After John left and the baby went to sleep, I swept and mopped and cleaned the area around the baby’s chair because Matthew is a source for food particles. The house looked nice by the time we sat down for TV.
The next morning I opened the drapes at about 7:15 am, just as the morning sun peaked through spaces of neighboring homes…to illustrate enormous boulders of food and outdoor detritus that cast long, accusing shadows across the floor. The dogs walked around them. Once again, the 2023-2027 Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval skips over our home amid snide comments and hurtful glances. (As Curtis proofread this, he gently told me, “Hon, we were never a contender.” He gets a smaller amount of antidote tonight.)
We hired a new nanny, Martha, to supplement the time that Lisa spends with us. We adore Lisa, as does Matthew. Martha will round out the week so that Matthew has stuff to do whilst we deal with Baby 2 (due in two weeks) and Baby 3, due in eight-plus weeks from today. We have been organizing the travel stuff by removing Matthew’s items from the diaper bag and replacing them with the newborn-sized analogues. It’s getting real.
Matthew has been asserting himself a little. He is fascinated by all things electronic. We found out today that the electronic doggie door, which Cooper uses regularly, has a setting to detect the signal from Cooper’s collar. Matthew has been changing that setting. It took quite a while to figure out. Sigh. And a couple of nights ago he got into my spices and ended up breaking a bottle of allspice in the living room. I had to strap him into his booster seat then hunt down glass shards and sweep up a metric ton of the powder. None of us was amused, but the living room smells nice.
Probably my least favorite household task is laundry. I don’t mind throwing it in the washer, but the transfer to the dryer is harder to remember and taking out the clothes, folding them, and putting them away is just onerous. Lisa takes care of Matthew’s clothes, but then I have to hunt them down because they never seem to end up where I expect them to be. “Why are socks in this drawer when we already have a sock drawer?” I used to take umbrage at her laundry skills; is she saying I’m lazy? Is she impugning my parenting? Now I don’t even care. Call me lazy. Impugn my parenting. I don’t even care. All I want is a nap.
One of my very first summer jobs was working at one of my favorite fast-food “restaurants.” On my first day there, one of the short-order cooks inadvertently swept five or six burgers off the griddle onto a disgusting floor covered with dirt, water, and who-knows-what-else. He picked them all up, put them on the buns, and they got wrapped and served. I didn’t last working there even two weeks. I never ate there again.
Ha! Our house was soooooo beautiful before Chloe was born. Magnificent. A thing to behold. I don't want to be a harbinger of doom, but she's 16 years old and it still hasn't recovered. I realized the other day that when we had friends over recently, the couch they were sitting on had holes in it from where the dog tore it open. My younger self would be horrified. On the bright side, we spend a lot less on furniture, knick knacks, fine cutlery, and such these days. I think they call that "balance."
Have you tried those child locks for the cupboard doors and pantry door? I know Matthew is clever, but it might work for awhile.
Hugs!