my home is messy enough to be happy...

My mom had a cross-stitch framed on the wall that said:

"My home is messy enough to be happy,

and clean enough to be healthy."

Or...maybe it was the other way around... Regardless, I am not sure that described her house quite as well as it does mine ;-) When I picture "home"...I remember the living room being spotless (i.e. toy-less), the kitchen sink always empty ('ner a stray, dirty dish to be washed}, and hours upon hours of bedroom cleaning by my brother and me (we both had trouble finding our closets, drawers, and shelves to put things away until being prompted by mom). 'Heck, even the garage always seemed to be well-swept. Maybe it wasn't always like that...but, that is how I remember it.

AND, then there is my house...

I didn't get a good picture of this...but, Owen wanted my ice cream cone. So, I gave it to him (what else is a mom with her hands full of a newborn to do...I can't get up to get him his own and don't want to risk a tantrum from a fragile toddler?). AND, what's worse is that I let him *enjoy* it in the house...

He enjoyed eating it. But, what he REALLY enjoyed was using it to create artwork on my kitchen counter and himself. Did you know that a drumstick, when squashed on the counter, leaves a really cool dot of cream that sometimes (if you lift it up just right) has the swirl on the top just like a DQ cone has? Owen really enjoyed making art on my counter with the ice cream.

He got pretty darn messy. When he was "done" with his ice cream -- there wasn't much left to eat after 10 minutes or so--we needed to clean this boy up. Oh man. The fragile newborn in my hands might give me 2 - 3 minutes to accomplish this. The fragile toddler might protest when I come after him with a bunch of wet paper towels. Should I remind you my house as been tantrum-central lately??? Crud.

I just had to dive in and get the job done. So...into the swing went Liam and into the sink went Owen. Yes, you read that right, I put my 19-month old son into the sink. I used the sprayer to clean the cream off his face and hands. He used it to rinse his feet!?!?!? And, then he picked up my dish-scrub brush and cleaned the sink for me.

sigh...at least I am teaching him to clean up after himself?!?!

Please excude the basket of clean, folded laundry awaiting my next trip up the stairs that appears in the background ;-)