Motherhood has endowed upon me its inevitable life lessons. I can fight them, acknowledge them, accept them, learn from them, but there they are. The most significant one as of late is definitely worth sharing.
Luka, Olivia, and I live in a tiny apartment. It’s real cozy. That’s just the way of life here. Because of the lack of space any little thing that’s out of place or left on the floor makes the whole apartment feel like a chaotic mess. At least, to me it does. I’ve always enjoyed the feeling of organized drawers, clean counter-tops, and a shiny floor. Now add a toddling one year old to this picture. It gets out of control in about 10 seconds. That was exactly the point. I had to learn to let go of control.
I always told myself that I was not going to be obsessed with a clean home when I had kids. A little tidiness is good, but the perpetual desire for a spotless home would not be my focus. Once Olivia started getting seriously mobile I thought, “This is it. This is when I need to let go and embrace the mess.” And I did. For a while. And then, somehow, I forgot. I forgot about this little pact I had made with myself. Maybe I just got tired of living in the mess. Maybe it started from having people over and feeling that I needed to present a perfect home. I’m not sure. All I know is that I found myself not liking the mother I was becoming. I was caught in a cycle.
This is how the day had become: Olivia wakes up, make her breakfast, clean up from breakfast, give her something to play with, start laundry, clean bathroom, make lunch, clean lunch, clean bedroom, clean kitchen, vacuum, make dinner, dust, and during all of this every 2 minutes I had to stop Olivia from eating something toxic or destroying some drawer I had just put back together or dumping out the dog’s food and water. It became a race to see if I could clean faster than she could make messes. We chose not to baby-proof our home and let me tell you, babies get into anything in a matter of seconds. They are the best hackers I know. The cleaning became more and more important. Inevitably, at one point, I began to get upset with Olivia for her messes. It became infuriating to feel like I was working so hard to have a clean home and then have it all be for nothing and that when Luka came home the flat wasn’t any better and it looked as if I had been twiddling my thumbs all day. Or maybe it looked a little better, but I was run down, unhappy, and short-tempered.
The day that this changed was when she dumped out the dog’s food and water for the 100th time and put the dog food in her mouth and was splashing around in the water on the floor. I pulled her away and in my most stern voice I looked her in the eyes and said, “Olivia, that is gross! This is NOT for touching!” to which she responded with a smile and adorable chatter. My sweet little girl is a very sensitive spirit. If you scare her or if she is a little sleepy and barely bumps her head she goes into hysterics and needs lots of soothing and love. The fact that my sternness didn’t phase her jogged me. I realized that she didn’t understand this at all. That’s when I realized that I just got upset with my baby over something as stupid as dog food. Over nothing. I had broken my own promise to myself. Then guilt. Then shame. Then anger at myself. You know, all those things mom’s feel. I picked up Olivia, hugged her, kissed her, and said to her, “I’m sorry, lovey. You know, sometimes I forget what’s really important. All this isn’t important. YOU are important. And the way I treat you is more important to me than all these things being clean. I’m going to do better now, okay? I love you.” Maybe she didn’t understand this, but it was important for me to voice this now. I need to create the habit of apologizing and voicing my feelings and mistakes for myself, but also so that eventually she will learn to do the same.
So now I have accepted the mess. About once a week, usually Sunday, I give it a quick cleaning, if it’s during the week I do the bare minimum. Then once a month I do a deeper cleaning. I’ve learned a lot through this. I have learned that in order to have a business and a family and keep a home you must prioritize. Some things you can do great, some average, and some below average. I choose to be great with my family and my business, average with my home, and everything else drops below that. I accept the mess and not just accept it, but I embrace it. The mess doesn’t mean I’m failing at something. It means I am spending quality time with my daughter. If any of this rings a bell, I seriously encourage you to make the same effort. It’s liberating, I promise. After all, when the kids are grown and gone, what will remain of the past? No one will care about our clean houses. Our relationships with our babies is what will last and endure beyond the mess.
Life has been wonderful since this little epiphany. The time that I am with Olivia I am really with her. I put everything away and give her my 100% focus and attention. We read books. We play. We go outside. We go to the park. We go to the city center. We laugh. We have fun. We create memories. I wouldn’t trade these memories for a clean floor or an empty sink. I wouldn’t trade them for anything.
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