My Beautiful Mess

As long as I'm in this mode of full disclosure...

My house is often a mess.  

I don't mind telling you because I'm not ashamed of the disorder you'll find in my closet, on my counter, under my bathroom sink, all over the laundry room, and on the shelves of the garage (among other places). 

I don't necessarily LIKE messes, but when you are living in a house, it gets messy. 

It's my beautiful mess.

Some friends and I were talking a few weeks ago, and we figured it would be helpful to women worldwide if every blogger posted a photo of her own beautiful mess.  You know, so we don't feel alone...and so we don't feel sorry for the other moms out there--supposing that they never get to experience the fun of beautiful messes.

Are you wondering if I am insane at this point?

Here's my take on things:

• It's lovely to have "a place for everything and everything in its place," but it doesn't matter if everything is in it's place all the time.  Model homes look like heaven, at first glance, but there's no LIFE in them.  That's not heaven to me.

• Working together and keeping a home tidy is essential to building strong relationships, teaching responsibility, and maintaining a healthy standard of living, but if our homes get messy during this process of raising children, that's not a poor reflection on us as parents.  It's natural.

• Messes are signs of growth and development.  When piano books are stacked all over the piano, that's because we're learning to read music.  When papers get piled up on the counter, that's because we all set our stuff down before heading out to the backyard to play...and then we made tacos together and visited with the neighbors and worked on Algebra and folded the laundry and then headed up to bed for stories.  It'll get clean...but what's the hurry?

• And finally, there's a difference between "people-live-in-this-house-so-it-doesn't-look-perfect" messes and "Aargghh-I-can-never-find-anything-in-this-pig-sty-why-why-why" messes.  The former, I can handle, but the latter requires some serious, immediate attention.

I didn't always see messes for their beauty.  When I had three preschoolers (while living in a tiny apartment in Boston)  I felt like I couldn't control ANYTHING, so I tried to control each and every mess.  One night, I wanted so badly to have our apartment "perfect," that I was tempted to walk into each bedroom and make the beds while my children were IN them.  I stopped myself in time, but I laugh now that I think back on those days. 

With experience, comes wisdom (at least I like to think so).  The day is over, my children are tucked in their beds, and I am curled up on the couch, gazing lovingly at the remainder of today's beautiful messes.  We've got toy cars all over the train table, too many shoes by the front door, a dishwasher full of clean dishes, a sink full of dirty ones, leftover tacos that need to go in the fridge, at least 64 surfaces that need to be wiped, disinfected, or polished, and crayons on the kitchen table.

Isn't it beautiful?

If you'd like to join me in this "beautiful mess" campaign, write a blog post about YOURS and then come back and link it here.  Won't that make all the moms out there feel great?