Motherhood Feels Like Chinese Torture

I’m a crazed Mother of three little kids. In spite of my best efforts my house is a wreck 23 hours and 45 minutes a day. It actually takes less than 15 minutes for the kids to mess it up after we get it cleaned but let’s just pretend. 15 minutes of cleanliness. That’s all I get. Once a day.

Why can’t I be this lady? The last one, who doesn’t seem to care about the mess? Why do I have to care so much? I don’t care enough to have an immaculately scary-clean house. I just care enough to be sickened by the chaos and make slight, useless efforts to do something about it. I think I have learned not to make excuses for the mess but I still don’t want to live in the mess. I despise the mess!

I get tired of hearing that thing that all of us Mothers of small children hear thousands of times. You know. That thing? The lecture? “Don’t worry that your home is a death trap. They’re only short for a small time (or is that small for a short time?) and when they’ve (finally) grown up and moved out you’ll miss the poop smears on the walls and the old pizza slices that the “little ones” played Frisbee with in the garage. You’ll be sorry that you spent so much time scrubbing paint and mud and chicken poop out of their clothes instead of helping them color your walls with permanent magic markers.” Isn't that how it goes? I think there is even a poem written about it. I hate that poem!

What about quality of life? What about being able to walk to the bathroom at night without breaking your leg tripping on a muddy rubber boot? What about being able to open the fridge door without getting honey all over your hand? What about people being able to walk out your back door without looking at a pile of poopy diapers that the kids have thrown there instead of in the garbage can that’s sitting right next to it?

They’re little things yet they mean so much. I am not one of those Mother’s who yearn for yesteryear. My oldest two can wipe their own butts and noses and I thank Heaven for it. I don’t miss cleaning up an infant that looks like it took a shower in banana flavored cottage cheese right in the middle of sacrament meeting. I can live without the all night vomiting you get when you let your 2 year old eat an entire box of raisins during a 4 hour car ride to the cousins house.

I can’t wait for the era of the grandchildren. Grandparents have it made. Even before I had kids I used to say I wanted to skip parenting and head right into Grand parenting. After the family leaves you clean up the honey and you don’t have to bathe in it again until their next visit. When the grandkids are tired and cranky and the parents are even more so, you are long gone, sleeping peacefully in your own bed that isn’t full of boogers and sand. When your granddaugher spends the night and keeps you up crying until 2:00 in the morning, you can load her into your car and take her back where she came from. Parents can't really do that. Hospitals don't take back criers.

Don’t misunderstand me. I love my kids. I love them to death. My own slow painful death. It’s like Chinese torture; Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom… I swear, when I hear that for the 47th billion time I will keel over dead on the spot. Every job has its risks. The crocodile hunter died on the job doing what he loved to do. I love being a Mom but I’ll be lucky to make it back to my bed tonight alive. If I crash into a toddler bike and break my head on the corner of the bathtub don’t send flowers. My family really likes chocolate chip-less chocolate chip cookie dough. A few dozen buckets of it should ease the pain of their loss.