Cleaning Up

Each of my kids has a kind of signature mess that they leave in their wake.

For my son, it’s usually crushed eggshells, bread crumbs, and clothes strewn about in such a fashion so you can actually reconstruct the order in which the garments were taken off, like some kind of crime scene investigation. For my daughter, it’s usually crafting materials: scraps of aluminum foil, shreds of paper, and all manner of creations-in-progress.

To be clear, I’m not romanticizing what it’s like to spend an hour every night picking eggshells out of the rug, or scrubbing pencil marks off the couch. It sucks. But I also know that after the last time I finish scraping out dried oatmeal off a bowl, left out on the table for way too long - and there will be a last time - I’ll almost definitely wish that there were more bowls to scrape, more eggshells and orange peels to pick up, and more crafts to smile at before throwing discreetly in the garbage.

Write your kids about the signature mess they make; it probably says a lot about them and what they’re into. (But only after you’ve picked up all those shreds of string and rubber bands off the floor!). Knowing that the mess won’t always be there might make you, in some small way, appreciate it more.