kid shit everywhere

and other regrets and concerns

Like many or even most parents, I absolutely abhor the amount of garbage that seems to come with children, but not in a fun "but wait, there's more!" kinda way. The toys, the diapers, the food and food packaging, the containers, the books¹, the assortment of things and materials left helter-skelter all over my house on every surface, but especially the floor and the parts of the floor where we walk the most.

helter skelter, she's coming down fast

I just looked up the lyrics to the Beatles' Helter Skelter and let me tell you I struggled to find a pertinent-enough quote. So, “she's coming down fast” but not in a fun way like the song implies, but in a painful way because she's tripping over all the shit left in the middle of all floors, yet somehow is camouflaged enough to cause tripping?!

I've started to take pictures - not often, but on occasion - of tiny little things that are left around that are "tell me you have children without telling me you have children" vibes and I am sort of loving it. It almost needs to be turned into a photo essay, which, now that I write that, I may do. Coffee table book but make it related to life with kids under 5 and also make it a board book, because...kids under 5.

you can say I’m trippin’ if you feel like

Some of the moments I snap are so dumb. It's a disaster. It's offensive to my interior design aesthetic. It's one of those moments that makes you remember dumb shit you said when you were childless (child-free? idk which is better) about how you wouldn't let the kid shit take over your space. There have definitely been moments in the past 5 years where the kid shit has indeed taken over what feels like every space. Particularly baby phase. Places for baby to sit, places for baby to lay, places for baby to have a bottle, to have a diaper changed. Places to store bottles, places to store dirty bottles, and yet more places to store clean bottles that haven't been put away yet. Places to store the new types of food you buy like pouches and tiny plastic snack containers, and the Costco box of Cheerios. When I was breastfeeding, there were nursing pads left on every table, side table, and nightstand in this house. I kept some in every bag, every bathroom². Places to store hats, tiny mittens, variety of jackets, boots, shoes, blankets that need to go back into the car from the last time you brought them inside the house, bundled up sleeping after coming home late from a friend's house.

Fast forward to post-Christmas, a few weeks ago, with an almost-5-year-old and a 21-month-old, who were apparently good enough this year to be visited by Santa in a big way, despite my efforts to keep Santa and toys limited to only the really good / really desired items. We left Christmas-morning chaos out for over a week, and it was super fun. I saw someone post on insta about enjoying the toy-phase around Christmas because eventually it's boring and it's video games and shoes and idk sports equipment or whatever, and the joy of little kid Santa surprise is hard to beat. I embraced it and took a bunch of pics and videos to forever immortalize the play on Google's somewhat-secure servers.

oh what fun? it is to…clean constantly?

And then this morning, walking out the door with 2 boys, 2 bags of their shit, a bag of my own shit, I glanced at our entrance table - which is clear of Christmas stuff but still needs to be re-styled and has just a couple of random items on it - and was particularly struck by the items that were on and around it:

little kid still life, oil on canvas; s. lloyd 2023; $12,000

Fresh sidewalk chalk, in a package and shape that makes it look like candy, almost. A pile of aforementioned blankets to go back into the car for just-in-case times. A tractor and a race car, whose purpose on the table I could not begin to guess³. An overflowing basket of hats and mittens. An overflowing basket of dirty shoes, and - not visible in the picture but very much present - lots of sand that falls out of dirty shoes, to scratch one of my favorite pieces of furniture and get sprinkled all over my floor as the dog walks to and fro over it.

It's like...a portrait of life.

I was trying to organize photos recently on my phone, and realized that I have lots of "nothing" snapshots. Lots of nothing that makes up everything. Selfies of me and C in preschool dropoff line. Sneaky pics I take of him when he's playing and being particularly imaginative. C + J eating a snack together. Lots of silly faces. Lots of MAMA TAKE A PITCHER OF DIS HUGE TOWER I BILDED! Lots of both boys eating something, like J trying a deviled egg for the first time, or J serving himself a Thanksgiving feast, or all of us taking big bites out of KK donuts.

These are photos that maybe won't make it into a styled photobook but I think absolutely deserve to be in a family yearbook, or at the very least saved in the skies for posterity. I struggle to picture my children as older adults, looking through "moms old pictures" like I did with my own mom's photo albums. It's so fun to see those snapshots of life when everyone was younger, especially when you don't remember the finer details. The finer details ARE the duplo blocks all over the floor, the sand exploding from every shoe, the tractors⁴, the blankets⁵, the toddler "art" left on the table for days and days⁶. The number of water bottles left around the house. The big amazon-size box of toys we recover quarterly from beneath the sofa⁷. The single baby star puff I found yesterday on the floor of my office, behind the snake plant (HOW?!). The Lego sculptures C builds and leaves on my dresser as a present and decoration, because he made it for me, and it's a magic dragon castle garage or something amazing like that, and could I leave it there because he made it just for me and do I like it and once again did I know he made it just for me??

you’re gonna miss this, supposedly

So yeah. There’s been a little change in how I look at "the mess." It's messy, it's annoying, and a lot of the time (maybe even most of the time but it's not like I'm keeping score) it ratchets my anxiety to new heights at alarming speeds, particularly when accompanied by loud noises, and it's all I can do to not scream (adding to the loud noises, never productive, though often satisfying) GET THIS SHIT OFF THE FLOOR AND OUT OF MY SIGHT OR I WILL THROW EVERYTHING IN THE GARBAGE.

And though I have actually threatened to trash a lot of things recently (a phrase that C is now repeating when he's mad, which is hilarious: "Mama, I gon' throw YOU in the garbage!" ...an eloquent way for a 4 year old to tell me to fuck off), now I'm starting to look at the messy room, the race car on my very nice and beloved West Elm console table, the Lego art placed on my dresser as decoration, and see the art of life. Learning. Fun. Memories. Growth. Happy kids. Safe kids. Childhood. And y'all! It's like, NICE! I even smile to myself sometimes!

I want to end on a snarky note because whenever I get all poetic and shit, I get squirmy and uncomfortable with the vulnerability but this is it. Once again, unpolished and unrefined, as life with these little monsters is, day after day. Until one day, they leave, pack their shit, but no not the legos. They don’t need those anymore. Though I’m sort of hoping, if I do my job well, they’ll want to take the legos with them, because play is essential. To childhood, yes, sure. But also to life. I fear raising a future stiff-upper-lip finance type bro, who doesn’t feel secure enough to admit he loves legos, or to admit that he loves what he loves.

Yikes that is feeling like a whole other topic so let’s end before I carry myself away here. More on future finance bros later? Mmk.

You can’t leave pics in comments, but I’m going to start a thread with this post and I’d love to see your own messes. And no “sorry about the mess” either! The mess is life, remember?

kbyeeeee

1. I actually think kids can never have too many books really, but I do also hate how many of them there seem to be, and how many of them make noises. I can't wait for this part of tiny kids to be over.

2. Height of glamour. Always a little awkward when some member of family would find one and be like oh what’s this? And I conveniently need to leave the room immediately.

3. Actually I can, because duh: it's either because these guys are parked on a cliff, waiting for him to come home from school OR because he wants to take them to his nana's house next time we go, and this is where he needs them to stay so he remembers.

4. For tractors not being super prevalent in my life, in my city boys’ lives, they sure are everywhere. Machinery is just cool I guess??

5. One of which is an afghan that my own grandmother crocheted for me, which has become C's favorite car blanket *sob*

6. Lately there are a lot of almost untouched pieces of construction paper - hardly a crayon or marker, single dot of glue with nothing attached, a tiny corner cut off one side - coming home from preschool, which C insists are monsters - with names - and that they not get thrown away.

7. If I could give anyone home decorating advice who plans to have children, it would be: buy a sofa that sits ON the floor vs. on legs, because good grief.