I take back every judgmental comment I might have once made about a messy house, that contained a toddler.
By the time I put Avie down for a nap this afternoon I had a dining room with toys, tupperware and books strewn about and a kitchen full of dirty dishes and food. Gag. The trash was overflowing and my socks were actually sticking to the floor around her highchair!
The kicker is that we were only home for 2 hours today to create this mess! She woke up, was changed, dressed, did her CPT, ate breakfast and then we were out the door to the hospital for a blood draw. I somehow managed to get myself dressed and two loads of laundry washed (only one dry so far- and I'm not even going to mention the status of our bedrooms right now).
It's a week before Christmas and we've lost our nanny! I'm currently in the process of looking for another one, while finishing Christmas shopping, finalizing holiday plans and my first week of meal planning isn't going so well (I thought it would be easy to find an uncooked ham- it's not- and what I thought was pork in the freezer turned out to be pheasant. But I only discovered this after thawing it out all day). To top it off; Avalyn is transitioning from two naps a day into just one. ONE NAP! I have one opportunity all day to cook, clean, eat, pee and check in with my part-time job... so, I just sent an email to my boss explaining the lack of child-care and apologizing in advance for my disappearance this week.
I totally get why parents of toddlers will sometimes turn a blind eye to the chaos of toys and clutter laying around in their homes. I'm sure Avie isn't the only kiddo who's favorite pastime is "dumping" things. Literally. Anything that is contained in something else gets dumped. Not to play with and not to get put back either. Dumped and left there.
Clothes in a drawer? NOPE! Clothes all over the room and one shirt pulled over the head for good measure.
Blocks in a zipper bag? NOT ANYMORE! Blocks and zipper bag all over the living room and the Little People Christmas Manger Set on it's way to "everywhere", too.
Soup in a bowl? FAT CHANCE! Soup on the tray, shirt, chair, floor, face and just to be cute about it, a little "Oh boy!" exclamation from the mouth of the babe. Good thing Mommy is trying to clean up her language.
I'm generally VERY happy about the way I taught her to handle each room of the house. She knows which drawers and cabinets are "hers" to play with in the kitchen and I don't have to worry about her falling off things when I'm not looking because she's been taught to climb down safely. There isn't a fear of her flushing things down the toilet and she knows that breakable or too-small items are off limits.... for the most part. But there is only so much self-control a "bursting at the seems" toddler can muster.
Sure, I can fold the laundry when it comes out of the dryer... but while I'm busy doing that, Avalyn will be busy ripping all her jammies out of the dresser and then quickly turning her sights the bottles of lotions that she just discovered in my bathroom drawer.... as well as the cool, oval-shaped "stickers" that I like to call panty-liners. And if I turn to clean those items up? Well, goodbye neatly folded laundry stacks.
It's just a phase, right? We will get through this...
Right?
I gotta get some locks on my drawers.