Tuesday, March 31, 2009

my mess is sicker than yours....

Sunday evening I harvested about 17 dirty diapers from our upstairs alone. Just in time for garbage day.

It was starting to smell like a barnyard.

Last month I cleaned out my car and uncovered a fossilized partially eaten cheeseburger and a ziplock bag of grapes that had chemically transformed into a white foamy substance.

Sick, you say.

Yesterday I re-ran a load of laundry doused in baking soda and vinegar in efforts to counteract the mildew that had been multiplying the fabric threads for 2 days.

Oh mercy.

Our junk "corner" made a move 6 months ago to the junk "drawer" and now we've made a new home for it in the junk "cabinet" because it seems to keep growing and growing and growing.

I bet there are unpaid bills hiding in there? Or maybe our Publishers Clearing House Sweepstakes check?

Now, REWIND 2 1/2 years to a tidier time:

I distinctly remember being fat with child, having just finished off my final days as an educator, and basking in my last two months of freedom before baby #1 made his grand entrance. Most of my days were spent shuffling around the house tidying up a room or corner here and there. I took pride in a clean house. I enjoyed organizing a space until it visually dazzled me! I was a clean person. Maybe even a neat freak, to some(that might be going overboard).

Then, I would call a friend. One who was in the midst of a life with kids. And after hearing about my day of cleaning she would say something like,

"Oh, you just wait til you have kids!"

Well, you know what my reaction was, right?
Oh sure. That won't be me. A clean house will always be a priority. And on and on...

Well, dangit. She was right.
It is hard with kids. It seems like where one mess is cleaned another mess is made.
So what I want to know is....

Is anyone else feeling this way?
What is your worst cleaning problem?
What is the grossest thing in your house?
Can you "one up" the petrified cheeseburger?

And PS.... if you have a "merry maid" then please come clean!
and PPS....I hope this is not the visual picture you have of my house:



16 comments:

Lindsey Jaye Parry said...

Yeah I thought I would never be the one with the "kid" car. But now Cherios and odd toys are everywhere.

Sometimes I like to watch Style's Clean House show, then I feel like even with my crumb filled car I am an OCD neat freak.

Fawn Christiansen said...

How about an apple.. no pear... found under the couch cushion? I say pear because I thought it was an apple but when I went to grab it, it smashed into a soft,soggy, slimy something I would think would be IMPOSSIBLE for a firm apple to do! It was a pear..yup..

The DeGraff 7 said...

Well, that picture does make me feel better-lol (and I could NEVER imagine your house looking like that!) because even in our messiest, smelliest, nastiest days, our house was NEVER that bad! Although at the time, I felt like it was ;0) Unfortunately I am afraid we can top ANY mess that comes your way, but only because ours were multiplied by 5! 5 kids, under the age of 6, 2 in diapers, 2 in pull-ups, all had sippy cups (that would almost always be discovered with something fermented in them) & one child that was literally a certified natural disaster (one day a hurricane, the next a tornado, the next an earthquake..you get the picture)-lol At least you know I will NEVER judge ;0) It really will get better...I promise!

merideth said...

ali sometimes i think you are inside my head. i was just saying to shelly today how hard it is to keep the house clean... seriously it is impossible.
oh it used to be so easy.
and i think i have lost some of my momentum in keeping it clean. right now the messes are winning in my house.
like that pic i posted the other day... i guess from that angle my house looked ok, but oh if you could see the mess that was behind me.
if you come to my house these days you may find me rocking myself in a corner waiving a white flag.

Oler Family said...

I have finally just told myself "what's the point?" I clean then I turn around and it's a mess again!! I found an orange in our car that was green and hollow..sick! Don't even get me started on laundry!!

ali said...

fawn - love the apple/pear
mer - white surrender flag....good idea

Heather said...

Hey, I LOVE your haircut. Wow, you are one foxy, hot, sexy woman. You ROCK.

jayne wells said...

You are the best for posting that awesome post! Nice to know there are some real people like me out there!

I just found a bottle of milk from who knows when under my bed today. That has happened way more often than I like to admit (or in the car or diaper bag!). My whole garage is our "messy corner."

amanda jane said...

oh sister. chocolate milk in sippy cup left who knows how long. my biggest salvation, I hate to admit, is our dog. he gobbles up all the discarded bits around the house before they can decompose! but then there is the dog hair issue. hang in there! at least you've got priorities.

Brooke said...

You know, it's amazingly hard to keep up on everything - okay, impossible. My sweet girls are into everything. I often feel like I could follow them with my vacuum, mop and garbage bag in hand and still not keep up. Here's a glimpse from a day not too long ago. I walk into the bathroom - after finishing the dishes - and find my sweet baby playing in the toilet - no big deal - it's a regular occurance when the door gets left open by the four year old. I walk to pick her up and realize the 4 year old had left a special surprise and the babe was having a blast - I even had to remove "dirty" toilet paper from her mouth. It gets better - later that day, I was at a friends house - and out comes Ash eating something. Know what it was - Cat VOMIT!! So, at least you didn't find one of your kiddo's eating the cheeseburger. Love ya.

Marie said...

Was I THAT friend? I do remember discussing how parents get agitated with their children and you told me something to the effect that, "Troy has a hard time understanding how someone can get angry with their children." This was before Jack was born or he was tiny. I was thinking in my head that I could completely understand and I think I voiced my opinion. Does he get it now? Or is he that super dad that never gets annoyed with kids hanging on his legs while trying to accomplish a task?

My question is why did I think it was difficult to keep the house clean before kids? Seriously, what was I thinking?

Today I tripped over dozens of toys dragged from their homes, emptied the kitchen sink a handful of times, ignored my messy car and put everything BACK under my bathroom sink. Walter LOVES to empty drawers and has discovered which ones do not have child locks.

Sometimes I get so frazzled I forget what I was doing and just wander from room to room deciding what to clean up first.

I think my worst find was a COMPLETELY molded over apple core under my couch. ALL MOLD! Or maybe it was the water that spilled in the van which made the perfect home for mold to grow. My van stunk to high heavens and when I lifted up the floor mat I figured out why. YUCK!

Marsha Lueck said...

Ali... could you have said anything more to the point! I love how you just described what every great mother is thinking. Cleanliness is important to us.. but dangit, you spend the whole day doing it and not spending the time with your kids or family. I am still struggling with the great balance of up keeping up with MY ideal clean home! It is never going to happen! RATS!

Just yesterday, towards the end of the day my little guy was smelling a bit sour.. I couldn't figure it out. I had washed him up from every meal and he had his bath the night before.. I was seriously complexed. Of course you keep on going.sooooo... We are at the store and my husband has my son in arms and looks at me with the most sour face... my little guy was carrying banana between his shirts ALL day long.. and it is amazing what just hours will do to a banana. Stinky sour stuff!Yeahh... I have many super yuck stuff, but I should post them on my blog. What a slacker I am with Blogging. :(
Hey I have been meaning to give you a jiggle and haven't found the time. Thanks for calling me back.. you are awesome! Sorry I called so late that night... ooops!

Love your post! Thanks, it is nice to know your not alone!

Jazz Joyner Livingston said...

I have to laugh, because I am currently that soon-to-be mom, with 10 weeks left before my first bundle of mess arrives. I have those optimistic thoughts that you all once had....

And now I only fear for what lies ahead of me! I'm going to go home and clean my house while I can!!!

Matt and Becky said...

Not too many days ago, Jacob (5) is playing with an unidentified object. He comes closer and I realize it is a dead frog. He throws it on the ground after I tell him what it is. I ask him where he got it. He tells me that Marcus (almost 3) gave it to him. So I ask Marcus where HE got it. "From the plant in your room" he responds. I do not know how long it had been there or where it came from, but there in the corner of MY BEDROOM was this shriveled dried dead frog. My room is usually fairly clean too:(

tara said...

So, I'm late on this one, but I totally relate. I had a basket of "clean" laundry that had been sitting at the end of my bedroom for who knows how many months. By the time I got to it, it had to be rewashed (for sure) and had a tiny spider or two that had made it's home in there.

I only have 3 children, but I clean up after four.... And then there's me, but I don't make much of a mess (:

annie said...

Amen, Sista! It took me about three hours the other day to de-gunk my car!