...THE MESS WILL WAIT FOR ANOTHER DAY !

There used to be a cute little poem that we moms all knew in the 80s. It was about it being more important to play with your children today and worry about cleaning up the house later, as the mess would always be there, and your children wouldn't.
Which, I of course read with (I was SO young!) overwhelming guilt following almost every session of standing at the bottom of the stairs and yelling,
"Clean it UP, I don't want to hear it, do it NOW before the health dept shuts this joint down, and we all have to move into our CAR!"

The idea of the car made feet scurry at lightening speed, as the girls would have less privacy than they complained about not having ALREADY (MOM!), and my son would have to be dropped off at baseball practice in his HOUSE! So before the guilt set in, I'd just go and have a cup of tea, waiting patiently for what I knew would soon be immaculate bedrooms.....and take myself out back removing myself from earshot, and allowing the bickering to remain with them, in the house where it belonged.

It was positively uncanny, but I'd almost always have something happen immediately after those afternoons having to do with the words in that bit of prose. 

These days, I am no longer so young, but I am faced this weekend with company (family, but still).

I found out about this late Thursday night,  as I was working at lightening speed on rewrites due on Monday for my soon to be published book, and already trying to ignore my burning throat and beating heart!

Today is Saturday, and this wonderful new house is just too darn large for me to clean. I swear that I get overwhelmed just looking at the hardwood floors, my 'office' filled with boxes, and the staircase so long that I can't hold the vacuum long enough to clean all of the stairs. Oh, and I can't forget the fact that my husband has been using the dining room table as his office since he decided that he didn't want to pay to heat his office above the garage, which is the size of the entire second floor of our home, and has made him an even worse pack rat than I've ever seen!

As for that kiddie poem, when I think of it now, no longer so young, I think not of Caleb's room which isn't really a mess because he only sleeps in it.

No, what comes to my mind now, (through the cloying panic) is the playroom belonging to HisCalebness that he leaves his bedroom behind to go and spend his time at home in; and that is such a mess I have been cringing as I've walked past it for a solid month!
I reminded myself of that poem about how playing with your kids is more important than cleaning up the mess, and began innocently using it as the greatest grandma rationalization of all time. When what I didn't realize, and what it's author neglects to tell us is that not only will the mess still be there, HAH! It's going to get exponentially worse!

I am now throughly convinced that the woman who wrote that did so while staring down at her sweet (and of course, sleeping) new baby, her first born-or she'd have known better, while thinking of her friends and their toddlers, and letting her hormones take the day! Causing me to wonder often what she has to say for herself now, huh?? I hope that she has nine children and NO household help of any kind, not unlike most of the rest of us poor idiots, who for some reason not only read that thing but passed it around....

So, here I sit this morning, attempting to come up with some sort of plan, since waiting all day yesterday for the call saying that they had to cancel as my children often do, but of course, not THIS TIME!

The playroom, which in theory is cute, or when originally decorated with Caleb's art used as wallpaper and other inspired ideas, and for about a week following my Lucille Ball routine with double sided tape, was cute.

The room now has a blue braided rug DESPERATELY in need of some cleaning solution, two red and ivory checked chairs with an ottoman and throw pillows, all of which require some of the same treatment; AND the unfortunate, but necessary cleaning out of the three toy boxes filled with junk, the ripped books, and the table that the 50" TV sits on which needs steel wool and industrial cleaning fluid to loose the popsicle sticks etc.., from it's sticky surface. I also have NO idea what on earth lies under that rug, but I do know a bump when I step on one, and I also know that there is probably food beneath both chairs AND the ottoman...how long should I allot for that, an hour?

Because once I finish it, I then have to clean the floors in all of the downstairs rooms; take down the christmas tree (I've been WRITING, okay?); clean the kitchen counters; the bathrooms; and get all of the pictures that my husband placed around the house in crates to 'help' me unpack after living here for 9 months, back into the basement as there will be no time to hang them. Then catch up on the laundry piled at the top of the staircase (I have no idea how they can just step over it and keep going, especially the one formerly known as "Mr. Example", my 61 year old husband!)

OR, do I just leave all but the Christmas tree as is and let them see what life is like for Mama, so that they can then kick Pop in the appropriate place, so as to wake his "I was born in my parents generation so I don't have to do it", You Tube watching, "May I make a suggestion for you, honey" (daily things to do list, which may be one good reason why the house is a wreck, as I REFUSE to listen to his suggestions) butt UP?

It's chancy, I may be doomed to live like this forever now, and I don't get it, I have never had this problem anywhere else that we've ever lived. Please do not misunderstand me, if the book sells I will immediately hire someone to clean this house for um yea, us.

Then again, I have never had a four year old with a full time schedule of his own, a book to finish and a job to find, 'just in case' because my suggestive husband isn't so sure he's making enough money and for some reason his butt appears to have become glued to a dining room chair so he can't find anything. No..... not the one to be revered....

Then again, perhaps this is the time when I will turn my attention to all of the little things that I heard growing up about Being True To Thine Own FEMALE Self and just go back to my writing, in a less than furious fashion, you know, make the deadline, and let the chips fall.....

Yes, perhaps I shall....