They're Coming!

Thanks for being patient with me.  It was a weekend filled with family and fun.

She's a fan of her Uncle.

Oh, and work.  Usually work.

And on the topic of company, I'm sure I'm not alone, but there's nothing I hate more than my frenzied-clean-up-before-guests tendency.  We went through it again this past Friday and Saturday morning (because I'll never learn that it's easier to maintain the base level clean as opposed to catching up on the clean from a state of obscene mess).  It's getting particularly more difficult as each child comes along; I suspect by #4 I'll have given up completely.  Combine the kids with starting the night shift and any spare moment without a small human attached to my hip, boob or arm is one I'd prefer to utilize on an extra bit of sleep.  Dishes are irrelevant when I could potentially doze free of consequences (which are usually in the form of further disarray).

Then comes the call.  "We'll be there Saturday!" or "I miss you.  Let's hang out?".  The latter usually comes when I'm having a pouty tantrum over my lack of friends and want someone to stop by for dinner or alcohol or both.  Luckily those kinds of friends are also the ones who are well aware of the terrible recipe that is my children, my job and my willingness to clean and won't judge me or offer "advice".

A favorite when it comes to dinner guests.  No unsolicited advice, just fun.  And wine, usually wine.

Yeah, even the "friendly" kind is not welcome in this situation.  It all sounds condescending given it seems to always come from people who can't even glean an ounce of what our schedules and lives are like.

This is usually how the table looks.

In any case, naturally, even though I'm made aware on a Tuesday of Saturday's deadline to pretend we're a put-together kind of group, I stall.  I drag both feet.  Both arms too.  My entire self transforms into a dead weight that either refuses to leave the bed or craves baby cuddles, in the face of the clean-or-be-embarassed dilemma.  I'm tormented by the sight of building junk piles, a floor that has needed to be swept since the last such visit, carpet that probably crunches (don't you judge me) and toys found in every square foot of every single room.  Laundry?  Feh.  Wash what you need, the rest can easily be ignored after deposited into the human-height pile in the basement.  Besides, it's like christmas when you finally go through it all to find crap you've been missing for weeks!

Or we just end up naked, because ALL of it's dirty.  But we don't mind.

With each passing day, the anxiety builds.  Everyone is fighting a little bit more over dumber and dumber crap, and still nothing is tended to.  Sometimes in my worst moments of crazed "mommy can't handle the mess" moments I'll even make lists.  Those I-mean-business-today lists.  The ones that get lost under the other piles of crap after I set them down in the last free bit of table space available.

Finally Thursday rolls around and I get somewhat serious.  Meaning I beg my husband.  Usually as I walk out the door to my car at 10:10pm.

Whatta guy.

Being the wonderful gentleman that he is (and being that his NOC shift at home involves uninterrupted sleep while all three of our offspring sleep) he'll typically plow through dishes and some living room tidying.  My type A personality screams and writhes somewhere in the deepest gyri of my pre-frontal cortex when faced with the level of clean that is acceptable to the rest of my housemates family, but I've done my best to lock that b!$*# away in an effort to be a calmer mom (outwardly).  I let her out at work for air, otherwise I'd surely have had a stroke by now.

At least he does something, because when Saturday morning arrives and I return home from work, I'm usually so exhausted that I've given up all hope of sparkling surfaces and have settled for no-gooey-blobs where they might be visible to everyone else.  The exhaustion is insurmountable, I've got nothing left in me.

Yeah, this, pretty much.  I dare you to wake me.

Inevitably they walk in, I'm filled with regrets. I vow to A) restore the house to mom-standard clean and B) never let it get so bad, ever again!  You know how the rest of this story goes without my detailing it here, I'm sure.  But I feel like putting it all out there for a public shaming so what the hell, why not?

Three days later when I've got that day off during which I had penciled in plenty of cleaning time, I find myself staring down the clutter and the deep cleaning projects, remembering how comfortable my bed is, how little W snuggles right close against me for her morning nap all warm and squishy, and noticing that my legs and arms are getting weaker and weaker, eyelids heavier.  Or the elder child/husband demands to know why I'm tossing the first thing I pick up.  Or I begin feeling guilty over time lost with my family which I'm fairly certain wouldn't exist if I didn't see some damn image with that stupid damn quote about how good moms have messy houses and it's ok because it means they're spending time with their kids.  These create the perfect storm that necessitates pushing off the cleaning for another day.  One when conditions are more favorable, I think to myself.

In the end, I know what I really need.  My husband and children need to take a vacation without me, during my three day weekend, so I can A) avoid the emotions that go along with ignoring them to clean and B) throw away whatever I want without the inquisitions.  Let me know if you're willing to put up with shelter my family for a few days, because that's the only way this house is getting cleaned.

Maybe afterwards I'll invite you over for dinner.