Momedy

If you know me, you know I’ve got a little control freak in me. A little meaning that on a scale of 1-10 I’m at about a 75.

It shows up in all aspects of my life, but most obvious in my daily routine is how I feel about the state of my house and the children in it.

These pages from my calendars the years/months the kids were born have been hanging at the top of the stairs and it drives me NUTS that Lottie’s page is a different size than the other two and therefore that I can’t (or at least I refuse to) hang them in chronological order:

Another thing that’s been difficult for me to look past is the fact that there are currently three beds in Alex’s room while we prepare to transition him into his big boy bed.

There’s no mattress on the top bunk, no good place for his chair, and the rug can’t be centered … which I guess at least distracts from the fact that his trim still hasn’t been painted.

I’d like to simply think of myself as “orderly”, but it can definitely verge on excessive, and “excessively orderly” turns out to be the definition of anal retentive. Which is a term I’ve always thrown around loosely until the other day when I actually looked it up.

Am I the only one who didn’t know this personality trait developed as a result of toilet training? Given the use of the word “anal”, I probably should have put that together years ago.

I just don’t have the mental capacity to put things together anymore though, because, ironically, all my energy has been going into toilet training toddlers. Which is apparently giving them a complex.

And while I’m busy giving the kids a complex, they’re actually serving mine well. Cohabitation with them means I’m finding a need to loosen up in a lot of areas. (Knowing the genesis of “anal retentive” suddenly gives “loosen up” a whole new meaning that I’m not entirely comfortable with). So in the words of Elsa, lets just say I need to let it go. (Also doesn’t sound right now…)

Laid back. There we go. I need to be more laid back.

Like with broken closet doors for example. Before I would have preferred a working closet door. Now I just have to admit to myself that it’s not at the top of our budgeting priorities and let the kid use it as a fort. (Just kidding, it was immediately removed from her room).

Now for clothes. If I had my druthers, my children would be dressed like Prince George and Princess Charlotte all the time. They’d also be as poised and well behaved as those two seem to be. Can I get a Royal team to help me in that regard?

Anyway, that would be my choice … lots of courdoroy, knee socks, ditsy prints with a nice crisp Peter Pan collar.

My kids of course have different choices, as I knew they would eventually:

And if that’s how they’re going to present themselves in public, then I’ll choose to do the same:

That hat and that sweatshirt and that makeupless face will pretty much be my uniform, until my kids can shower and dress and feed themselves in the morning and I can resume showering anytime other than 11 pm.

Chores are another thing I’m going to have to let go of a little.

Perfect hospital corners pale in comparison to the life skill Evelyn will develop from having to make her bed herself every day, right?  At least that’s the mantra I repeat to myself every time I walk into her room and see this on top of what was once a nicely made bed:

When questioned, Evelyn said her lovies were at a concert. Those music boxes in the middle play Fur Elise and the Beauty and the Beast theme, so it must have been a real rager.

I would MUCH rather have the laugh I get out of seeing the way her little mind works than a perfectly orderly house, and I’ve come a long way in loosening up a bit.  Maybe too far:

One sock is missing because I used it to wipe up a milk spill this morning when there was no dish towel handy and my two year old was about to run through the puddle on his wiggle car. It was then thrown on the laundry pile but I forgot to remove the other one and walked around like this for close to an hour.

Is using a sock to clean taking loosening up a little too far? Perhaps. Looks like I’ll just need to work on finding a balance, like in every aspect of my life.

For now that means eating a cheeseburger for dinner since I had a salad for lunch.

And maybe soon moving Alex into his big bed, so I can go back to fixating on the unpainted trim … and therefore maybe finish that project.