I saw a picture the other day on Facebook that read, “My house looks like I’m playing a game of Jumanji.” Man is that the truth!
I try to remember that my kids are still little and it’s just gonna happen. It’s not like I am entertaining dinner guests every night and our house is in a perpetual state of remodel, but still…I can’t keep up with the basics. And I have a tiny house! I swear it should be much easier.
To me, this whole domestic engineer thing was just missed in my DNA. It’s a grouping of tasks that requires much more energy and patience than I want to expend on any day. One would think because my mom raised five kids and did EVERYTHING for us and the house, that I would have gleaned something more than just sheer appreciation for these tasks. I clearly didn’t.
Ask my sisters/brother. I did not get the housekeeping gene. It wouldn’t matter if I worked outside the home or not. Those dishes, laundry and vacuuming chores are just not my cup of tea. Never have been. I hate ‘em. Not just hate, I despise them to a point that I just get purely angry on the weekends when I am doing these.
Have you heard when momma ain’t happy, nobody is happy? Oh, so true.
Truth be known, I will weed-eat, mow, just about anything outside, before I want to pick up dirty clothes or dirty dishes.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my babies and my husband and I love it when my house is clean, but Oh My Gosh! I truly never realized how much chaos is created if these chores are not maintained adequately.
Let’s get down to the nitty gritty. Allow me to list for you some of the pet peeves that are created in this enormous undertaking.
One of my biggest?
Socks and Panties.
Yes, that’s what I said. Anyone who has raised kids knows that a kid will drop their skivvies anywhere. I have put hampers in the bathroom, their room and heck…I am considering the kitchen and living room, maybe even the driveway.
Panties are like weeds in and around my house. Oh yeah, I have found a pair or two in the yard. (to explain…they used to get “nakie” in the car to change for gymnastics and well…yeah, panties were in the yard. I swear they multiply everywhere. I will pick one pair up, walk to another room, come back and bam…there they are. It’s like there are underwear gnomes running around my house.
Nunu, who is 8 mind you, thinks she has to have a “relaxing” bath once or twice a night – so what happens? Panties happen. For every set of clothes she takes off, another comes on. For whatever reason, the other pieces of her wardrobe can make it to a hamper, but those ever-menacing panties wind up by the front door, the entry to the kitchen, just wherever!
Moving on to socks –
I have a sock bucket. It’s full of every sock that comes out of the dryer and there most likely isn’t one true pair. I don’t care anymore. I can’t fight the battle. I did, at one point in time, throw the entire bucket away in an effort to ease my mind – only to find that a new bucket was necessary because there are still no pairs!
Thank you Lord for the mismatched sock trend. Man has my life been saved with that. Nobody really ever knows what happens to the “other” sock. I’m sure every home and every household member has experienced this phenomenon. It’s truly almost freaky that such a common thread runs so widespread that chain stores sell mismatched socks as a set! It’s brilliant. Simply brilliant.
On to the kitchen –
Cooking is right up there too. I thank God David cooks. The girls won’t even eat my mac-n-cheese. Years ago, I went to turn the oven on for Emily, my oldest, and she literally asked me to wait for David to get home because she wasn’t sure I knew how to use it correctly.
I do realize people in the house have to eat. I also know that if David cooks, I should be more than happy to clean up. And I would be, except for one or two things that just set me off to no end.
Let me say that I love my husband’s cooking. Best spaghetti EVER. Absolutely think he could make a living with what he cooks. BUT…cause you know I always have a big one…Good Lord!
I walked in the kitchen the other night and it looked like a scene from a crime show. That sauce was everywhere. Looked like blood spatter all over the cabinet face, the wall, the backsplash, the kids, just unreal. Looked like Chef Boyardee himself had exploded right here on Coyote Trail. Thought for a minute that I needed to place evidence markers around the kitchen. The spatter had no particular pattern and I question whether David had even heard of a sauce pan lid?
Asinine. That’s the word I used. Just asinine. Dinner took maybe 45 minutes at most, but I swear I cleaned sauce for three hours!
These are the reasons I wished I drank. (I write instead – and don’t discount a good church sermon on patience – hee hee).
While we are in the kitchen, let’s address the bowls, cups and plates in the sink. I ask: “Why? Why for the love of all that is holy are both sides full?” It was one meal. There are only four of us in the house. How does this even happen? If you are going to leave them there, at least rinse them out.
Then comes the second issue. I hear, “We did!”
Incorrect. You did not rinse anything out. Rinsing would imply two actions. (1) Putting water in and (2) Dumping water out. My family only gets half of this process right, then defends it with another irritant.
Again, mom loses her cool. But at this point, there was never cool, there was already medium heat to my words.
Do NOT leave water in them and tell me they are “soaking”. Soaking would lend itself to mean that it is a temporary solution and you are coming back to resolve said soaking situation at some point. Better yet, leave a whole sink full of dish water that has sat there for a bit. Nothing is more disturbing than sticking your hand in that tepid water to drain the sink and suddenly squishing into something unidentifiable. I flat go ballistic on this stuff.
I’ll slam stuff around, say things I have to pray about later and then dump the water and the dishes out angrily. That always lends itself to family laughter because inevitably, I am “going off” on someone with ramen noodles stuck in my hair or a piece of cereal hanging from my shirt.
Well, I feel better. I guess if I am playing Jumanji, there isn’t another family I would want to play it with. It doesn’t matter how you roll the dice in this game, there is gonna be some crazy event. And if life was all sunshine and rainbows all the time, can you imagine how boring Sandy’s path of life truly would be?