One of those days

It's been one of those days. No second nap for kid #2, and no nap at all for kid #1. Day 3 of getting rid of the bottle cold turkey (why is this so difficult... it's milk! Drink it!). Laundry as far as the eye can see. College basketball on TV as loud as my husband can possibly put it without his ears bleeding. Unmade beds. Dirty dishes. Weeds taller than my kids in the back yard. Dust bunnies having a party behind the couch. A toilet that could really use a scrub. It's like I'm on a treadmill that day by day gets faster and faster and I can never get off. I organized the kids puzzles and games in the living room only to have them tear them apart 20 minutes later. So then I feel like what's the point? But at the same time, if I don't maintain constantly, it's going to get really out of hand, really fast. Like Hoarders out of hand. Or at least those are the visions I have in my head (minus the dead cats).

I just can't keep up, and I only have 2 kids! How do you do it with more? With a bigger house? It seems impossible. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe stay-at-home moms who love their stay-at-home lives have some secret I am not aware of. How do you break out the bleach and give the toilets a scrub when a 1 year old wants to join you and - A. breath in the fumes, and - B. touch everything? And emptying the dishwasher is like an invitation to grab knives as quickly as possible. How does he grab them so fast? It's like he turns into stealth ninja baby.

I know I shouldn't complain. I have two healthy kids, a loving husband, and a roof over my head. It's all I ever wanted as far back as I can remember. I guess it doesn't need to be clean all the time. But it's like that lie that is the cover of every magazine. You see a woman who is impossibly beautiful because she's been retouched ala Photoshop, and you think that's what you have to be to be beautiful. I'm well aware of the Photoshopping that takes place and still compare myself to those women. I see homes in magazines, on commercials, in TV shows and think people really live like that. There's never sticky juice spots on the kitchen floor, never a pile of laundry preventing the hamper lid from closing, never the smell of poopy/chicken carcass garbage that hits you when you walk in the door from work because you forgot to take it out in the morning after you threw that diaper in there and the leftovers from last week, never that ring in the toilet that never comes off (though I guess no one is filming the insides of toilets) never globs of toothpaste stuck to the sink. Know what I mean?

On the weekends I can get the house back to acceptable. Towards the end of the week, it looks like a frat house with some toys sprinkled in. On Fridays I get worried that someone might happen to unexpectedly drop by and see what we're living in. Sometimes I think, I should just forget about the laundry right now and play with my kids on the floor. So I do, and then someone doesn't have any clean underwear the next day. And you can't really pull dirty underwear out of the hamper, spray it with Febreze and throw it in the dryer. That only works with semi-dirty non-crotch-touching items. Not like I do that or anything... never mind.

I've have learned to combine play and housework. They do like to help me when I ask but do I really want to turn every task into a project involving two toddlers? "Don't eat the dryer lint!" Sigh...

Such are the struggles of a mom. Work/play/kids/cleaning/cooking/and fitting in sleep. It reminds me of a quote I've seen a few times lately... or maybe it's an Irish blessing?

"May you live as long as you want, And never want as long as you live."

I'm working on it.... but I still want a clean house.