Not the way I planned. That’s how.
This was supposed to be, officially: Clean Up This Crap and Get Things Done Weekend. Or, what my parents always called Butts and Elbows Time. As in, we don’t want to see anything except butts and elbows, because everyone will be working and scrubbing.
In general I’m a neat freak, and I keep things very clean. But you know, I had a couple kids and as I said in my comment over at Late Enough last week, the children ate my brain. And my time. These days I don’t always have floors you could eat off of. (Except my kids still totally do eat off the floors. Don’t tell anyone, please.) There are some killer dust bunnies. The playroom frequently looks like someone detonated a bomb comprised of light-up plastic parts.
But, in general, things are not too out of control around here. Things stay fairly neat. Fairly. And they’re clean. Mostly.
Over the last couple weeks I let things go a little. Just a bit here and there, but it ads up. We’re redoing the half-bath, so there’s currently a sink in our dining room (see picture at the end of this post as proof of how far I’ve let things go), an extra mirror on the floor in the office, and accessories stacked randomly in both the office and our master bedroom. I cannot explain why we didn’t put all of the bathroom accessories in one place when we took them out of the half bath. Don’t ask. There is not an acceptable answer.
There’s other stuff, too. Boxes that are waiting to be shipped, school projects that don’t yet have a home, toys that have been confiscated for misuse and never returned to their proper homes. (Like, just for example, when the toy bat is used to go all Tonya Harding on my shins, rather than used appropriately on the darling toddler baseball game, it gets taken away. Just for example.)
Anyway, we were planning to just tackle the crap out of our chore list this weekend. And because I’m delusional, I thought I might also finally finish the photo project I started almost two years ago and clean out my closet. We did manage to cross a few things off the list (wahoo), but we got somewhat waylaid. By parenthood.
Right before lunch on Saturday, the toddler, P, whom I may have mentioned is in training to be an extreme athlete, leaned over the top of the Learning Tower and fell out, landing on his head. I could mention that I was not home when this happened, and that it totally happened on my husband’s watch, but I won’t throw him under the bus. (Okay, I wrote that and then I felt really lousy – I am absolutely NOT blaming my husband. P is highly skilled in the art of falling and doing dangerous things. This is in no way my husband’s fault!)
Anyway.
I walked in the door about two minutes after the fall, and at first we couldn’t even see where he hit his head. There was no discernible bump. Although the child was plenty upset – much more than usual for him – he didn’t look any worse for wear. After some snuggle time, he perked up and ate his lunch. Then he played a bit and seemed to feel okay.
I put him down for a nap and checked on him approximatively every 32 seconds, watching for signs of concussion. An hour into his nap time he woke up screaming, which is highly unusual. I went to his room, only to be greeted with something out of The Goonies. His left eye was nearly swollen shut.
I flipped. And off to the ER we went.
Let’s cut right to the important stuff – he is fine. The kind people in the ER were nonplussed and said it’s very normal to see delayed swelling around the eye, even though he technically hit his head, and not his eye. I kept pointing out that he didn’t land on his eye, and they kept saying, “Yes ma’am. We understand that.” Do you? Because he landed on his head. His H-E-A-D and not his E-Y-E. “Yes ma’am. We understand.” Well, okay then.
They also did not believe me at all that the child is B-U-S-Y, because he sat calmly and just watched everything going on around us. He waved at everyone that came to talk to us, said “bah” (bye) when they left, smiled, held still for the exam, and was the picture of a perfectly behaved child. Go figure. Not that he’s a bad kid at home. Not at all. He’s just busy. He likes to climb and is fearless. Exhibit A: impressive swelling around his eye.
He now has a shiner that gives an 80s glam rocker eye shadow effect. The swelling is almost gone and he doesn’t seem one bit bothered by his black eye. I, however, I am bothered a bit.
As with every time my kids get injured, I have a touch of PTSD. I’m always very calm, cool and collected at the time. I’m pragmatic and I am able to discuss what we need to do. But after the fact I allow myself to play out worst case scenarios and imagine all the awful stuff that could have happened. It’s so unproductive and it wears me out. Instead of tackling my to-do list last night after we returned home from the ER, I tackled a glass of wine and an Entourage DVD.
So there you have it, how we spent our weekend. Is there a point? Yes – and my apologies that I took the rambling road to get there.
The point is that parenthood never goes according to plan. Life doesn’t go according to plan. And although there was a time when I couldn’t imagine myself saying this, I now believe it is okay to go off plan. It is okay to ignore the list. It’s necessary, actually.
Living comes first. Clean windows come in way down the list. Way down. Taking an extra long time to snuggle a hurt child, and rock them to sleep is what it’s about. Taking the time to decompress and hang out with your husband after a crazy day is what it’s about.
So if you’re one of my neighbors who is coming to my house for Progressive Happy Hour this Friday, and you notice that the guest bath sink is still in the dining room, and our front porch is kind of dusty and cobwebby, and the windows appear to have been licked, please help yourself to another cocktail… and another… until your vision gets blurry and the house looks clean.
If you’re still reading, I thank you for hanging in there on a rambling, disjointed post. Here’s what I wonder:
I admittedly struggle with focusing on what’s truly important. My feelings and my actions don’t always align. For example, I will do my damndest to get this house in order before having company Friday night, even though I know it will not matter in the long run.
I wonder, do you wrestle with priorities when it comes to outward appearances vs. inner realness? Do you get hung up on the insignificant things instead of focusing on the big picture?
The Shiner, Morning of Day 3
A sink in the dining room could be useful for quick hand washing and dish cleaning...
Lapsed homemaker. Looking to hire a full-time housekeeper who will work for the sheer joy of a job well done and free coffee. Interested parties, DM please. 
Oh, poor baby. My 3 year old had a black eye about 2 months ago. It was so scary, and sad. I felt horrible. I was lifting him into our mini van and hit his head on the door 🙁 that was an epic mommy fail. Good to hear he is okay, btw I LOVE the sink!
@Mama P, Oh, sorry your little guy had a black eye, too. I’ve hit my kids’ heads on the car before when getting them in the car seats. That is not a good feeling!!
(Re: the sink, thanks!)
“The only sure way to make God laugh” or whatever, right? I’ve changed my policy on cleaning before guests come. It seems the moment they walk in they put shoes here and purses there and you can’t even tell I just killed myself making it clean enough for a real estate appraisal. I force myself to rough straightening and applaud my forethought when I have to vacuum after.
Yeah, I don’t have guests over much. If I did this theory would probably be quickly debunked!
@Joey @ Big Teeth & Clouds, I’m actually with you – I think that’s a good policy. I used to clean to a white glove standard before company and then get annoyed by the messes. Not anymore. I still want things to be clean, but I know I should save my elbow grease for after the party! 🙂
you mean we’re supposed to clean windows??? i haven’t done that since… well, since my son was born…
@Nobody, I hear you! It seems like such a waste of time to clean them anymore. Seriously, you would think we have slobbery dogs, but in reality we just have slobbery kids. I don’t know why looking out the windows requires and full facial assault, but they cannot be within one foot of a window without touching it and putting their faces all over it.
So glad you took a picture of the shiner…gotta have pics of all the shiners. They have special places in our scrapbooks.
Did you try the torte???
Lots of yummy love,
Alex aka Ma What’s For Dinner
http://www.mawhats4dinner.com
@Ma What’s For Dinner, Oh, I just realized when I saw your comment that I forgot to take a picture of the torte and send it to you!! Next time I will do that. We loved it!
I have mixed messages for guests. Sinks cleaned, beds made, kitchen table cleared, floors cleared? Then we’re fine. In my eyes.
Because I’m going to have to clean it all up after they leave so I don’t go out of my way to say, vaccuum, when I could spend more time with my kid or husband. It’s a faulty system for sure but it keeps me a little more mellow.
@KLZ, I don’t think it’s a faulty system at all. I think it makes perfect sense and have adopted a similar system myself. It’s crazy-making to get things perfect only to spend more time redoing it all later. Perfection is for people who don’t have kids or pets or husbands. 😉 It’s an internal struggle for me, but I’m learning and doing a lot better with not killing myself to make things shiny clean!
I am so with KLZ. When we have guests I will do the normal cleaning but come on, that’s not really me to do more.
Sorry about P, didn’t even notice it today. He is one tough kid!
@Christina, He is tough, that’s for sure. I’m glad that you didn’t notice it – I’ve gotten some crazy looks from people (I’m sure they’re considering calling CPS), so it’s nice to know that it wasn’t the first thing you saw. 🙂
You’re right, he does resemble Adam Ant. And for me, it goes in cycles. Some weeks I care more than others and this week I think you have the right idea, pour stronger drinks.
@Poppy, I’ve been calling him Adam Ant since I read your comment. Makes me laugh. 🙂
Here’s to cocktail-induced-clean/dirty-amnesia. Or something. You know what I mean!
I rather enjoyed the ramble. And honestly? I sort of need to know we’ll have people over to motivate me to keep the house in some type of semblance of order. If that sink is taking up too much room in your house, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands. I have a pedestal sink in the half bath. Useless thing, really. (And now you know why I’m fond of the ramble. I’m a bit of a rambler myself.)
@katdish, Yay for rambling!
We just took out the old pedestal sink for that very reason – I couldn’t store anything under it, or set more than a small soap dispenser on it. When overnight guests wanted to use that bathroom to get dressed, there was nowhere to set their stuff. Drove me nuts!
I love your new bath “piece.” We lived like that in NH, so I get it.
And I’ve rushed my girls off to the hospital more times than I’d like to admit.
And on a totally different topic, did you get the BlissDom email? Not too pumped that it’s even more expensive than last year!
@liz, Yes, got the email and do not know what I’m going to do… It’s expensive!!
I love how you put this: Living comes first. (My problem is that it comes second… through fifty-seventh 😉
Oh and I am linking to my daughter’s shiner (first pic in the post) from the first time I left her alone with my husband (who is very capable but STILL it’s fun to give him a hard time ;)) (http://www.lateenough.com/2010/05/and-i-thought-my-husband-might-try-to-take-my-job/)
She hit her head too — right in the sweet spot… clearly. I hope your P is feeling better. I was a nervous wreck for like a week afterwards.
@Alex@LateEnough, Oh, that picture. Poor baby girl! And poor mom. I know how you feel. I always replay everything, dwell on worst case scenarios… Basically, a hypochondriac. It makes me feel better to know that even you, with your medical expertise, were a nervous wreck.
P is fine now. Still a bit bruised, but it looks so much better finally. Now I just need to keep his head wrapped in bubble wrap or a helmet until family pictures on Friday…