{"id":1881,"date":"2008-05-14T12:12:52","date_gmt":"2008-05-14T17:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/?p=1881"},"modified":"2008-05-14T12:13:29","modified_gmt":"2008-05-14T17:13:29","slug":"mamas-problem-with-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2008\/mamas-problem-with-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"Mama’s problem with mess"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most challenging things I’ve found about being the mother of an infant and a toddler is my limited ability to clean up a mess. Or, I should say, to be *patient* about cleaning up a mess. <\/p>\n

I’m not exactly a neat freak, but I do value having a somewhat clean and tidy home. This pretty much clashes with Lucy’s take on life, which includes lots of delightful exploring with mud, salad dressing, ketchup, and cream cheese (and that’s just before breakfast). In theory, I think experimenting with such substances is very beneficial for the toddler’s mind. But, as I don’t want to find bits of cream cheese smeared all over the house, and as I am often nursing the baby and cannot easily wipe the aforementioned cream cheese off of Lucy’s hands, I find myself wanting to prevent the whole process from starting. Which is no fun.<\/p>\n

I recently found this great pair of photos on the last page of the May 2008 issue of “_Wondertime_ magazine”:http:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/2007\/the-labor-story\/ which so clearly illustrates the tension I feel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I put it up on our fridge as a reminder of the higher goal. I’d love to always be relaxed enough to enjoy sweet moments where Lucy plays with all-purpose flour while I’m rolling out my “calzones”:\/news\/2008\/olive-calzones\/, knowing that I can just clean up the disaster later. Sometimes I succeed and we have fun cooking together — then I spend some time afterwards wiping up the dusty, gooey mess that has erupted in the kitchen, hoping that Rosie won’t wake up until the worst of it has been whisked away. No big deal. But sometimes I just can’t take it and I sit Lucy in front of “_The Muppet Show_”:http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Muppet_Show while I’m trying to make dinner. I definitely have some room for growth here.<\/p>\n

Someday, Lucy will be old enough to actually help with the clean-up process. Someday, Rosie will join in the fun and we’ll all make a mess together. And someday, maybe I’ll get a live-in housekeeper and won’t have to worry about this at all! Yeah, that’s it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most challenging things I’ve found about being the mother of an infant and a toddler is my limited ability to clean up a mess. Or, I should say, to be *patient* about cleaning up a mess.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}