"It's yucky when Gracie poops in the tub;
but it feels good to get back into the new, warm, water after it's all clean!"
(Sunny Boo, 3)
Thankfully, those bathtub accidents aren't a regular occurrence around here; but when they DO happen, it's not just one isolated incident. I mean, I put guilty child onto the toilet to "finish" while I fish the "job" they already did out of the draining tub but said child NEVER "finishes;" which leads me to falsely believe they are done. So, after pulling unspeakable material out of the tub with my bare hands and wipes and whatever else I can desperately think to grab with and scrubbing and bleaching and rinsing, I put my shivering kiddos back into the warm soapy water only FOR IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN. Fun times.
I think it's been a bit traumatic on the older two, because sometimes there will be a dark colored toy lurking under the bubbles around Gracie and I have a quick freak-out moment which sends both Kai and Sunny flailing out of the tub like their life depended on it. 99% of the time it's just Sunny's little toy horse or this creepy looking giraffe head which I should really just throw away, but when it's not, well, it's just yucky.
BUT, I get a clean tub out of the deal, and after I get the kiddos all situated again I see that I've got my cleaning supplies out so I just go ahead and clean the rest of the bathroom and then the other one, while I'm at it. So, I get clean bathrooms out of the deal. Thanks for that, Gracie.
It's not fun to throw up.
But, after you do it, you feel a LOT better.
(Kai, 5)
Kai is our puker. He throws up at the first sign of bodily unrest. I'm actually convinced I could talk him into it. I won't ever try, but I know it would work. Last time he had the stomach flu, his first (and the first is ALWAYS the worst) "spit up" as he calls it, was, of course done leaning over our bed--like, right in that place where my feet hit the carpet when I swing my legs out of bed. Oh, and let me add that this happened the actual moment I drifted into deep sleep after already staying up too late.
So, after he "spit up," he "felt a lot better" and went back to bed and I got to do my favorite clean up job (G was gone out of town for work OF COURSE) by the light of my iPhone at 1:30 in the morning. After scooping the seemingly life-sized puke pile with approximately 30 plastic grocery bags, spraying/soaking and vigorously scrubbing the carpet, I was was pretty wired so I figured why not start some laundry and since I had my special spot/stain spray out, why not go spot clean the couch and then, why not empty the dishwasher and shoot, why not start some crockpot oatmeal for the morning?
I find that I behave that way more often when I'm pregnant, but it was erratic and necessary at the same time. And, of course by the time I finally wound down and crawled back into bed, it was "round 2" on the whole "spit-up" game.
If I was going to write the longest blog post of all time, I'd expand on about 80 of the other "clean up" scenarios that range from a giant glass jar of honey shattered all over the living room floor to a sack of flour that "snowed" all over the whole entire literal house to Gracie ditching her diaper to do her "duty" in every one of our bedrooms.
You know the saying "the quickest way to get a clean house is to have company over last minute?" Well, it also works with sick kids, bath time with a baby, and well, that general toddler tendency toward sensory play.
Bottom line: It is after the biggest mess, that we get the best "clean."
It's one thing to do daily upkeep every day--but it's another thing to get on your hands and knees and scrub sticky honey off of your baseboards and the never-seen hard wood beneath your hutch and couch and chairs. Once you get going, you see all the other crap that needs cleaned down there and since you are there...
Today, I reflect on how grateful I am for the big messes I've lived through--and I'm not talking about the kind caused by my kiddos. I'm talking straight-up LIFE. I'm talking about the kind that leave you crying in the shower or not wanting to get out of bed because you feel so empty kind of messes (although some of the bad kid-caused messes have that effect as well).
I'm talking about the kind of messes that we make ourselves, or the kind of messes that we get into with others. Some of them come from things like death and sickness and others come from selfish living, messed up priorities, an ungrateful greedy spirit and just plain being far, far from God.
None of my messes have been easy "surface clean" type of jobs. They have all required the deep, sweaty, bleach bottle kind of scrubbing.
But it's in the effort of ridding the dirt and grime and grit from those hard to reach crevices in my soul that makes a way for grace; and it's in the surrender and humility to keep dropping to my knees to do the dirty soul-work that is so easy to avoid that I feel like I'm deeply loved and accepted and, well, clean.
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