Finding Patience in a Puddle of Paint

Baby Blueberry's Painted Toes

      Sometimes I think my job title should be 'Director of Messes' or 'CEO of the Mess Department'- It does seem like you can follow the rhythm of my day by the messes that occur.
      Breakfast- laundry- Gibson coming in without getting his paws wiped first- toys and more toys. And lets not forget the stack of DVDs that Baby Blueberry loves to take out of the cupboard and leave in piles around the living room.
      There are school books that seem to take over my dining room table from homeschooling Bean.
      Then there are the little pile of crumbs that linger under cupboards after meals.

       These are all annoyances. And lately more than I can handle. I think winter has been a bit too long for me this year. Chaos is running as Your Royal Highness Pain in the Ass in my household which is causing rebellion stirrings in my soul and a constant revolution to be spinning in my head. I was hoping to make a trip to the ocean this summer to calm the angry emotions but have found out that there is no way that can happen this year- so it is what it is - I'm just not sure what 'it' is anymore.

       Lost. Yeah, I'm feeling lost. Perhaps it's not enough sleep. If there is one thing Baby Blueberry is extremely good at- not sleeping. Even caffeine has lost it's umph to fuel my engines. I'm just drained.

    But back to the partial pic above. In the whole picture, Baby Blueberry and I are standing over the mess and I'm smiling. How can I be so happy with such a mess, you might ask?
    I wasn't. I wasn't happy one little bit. I'm so OVERWHELMED that I'm about ready to sell everything I own and live without stuff. Because stuff seems to take time to clean and organize and keep nice.

    But I'm smiling anyways. Because the mess was about more than a mess. (Which BTW took over an hour to clean up.) It was a chance at a little bit of redemption.

   When I was sick, so many years ago, I tried to be a good Mom. We read books, and played toys, and I tucked them in at night with snuggles and hugs.
    But I was also very impatient and angry.
   Especially with messes.
    Because a mess meant more work. More energy. More time I didn't have.
    And so when Bean and Abu painted my kitchen blue because they thought I would like it- I was very angry about it. I asked them, 'how could you do this?' "'How could you make a mess for Mom?' And their little faces fell and something went hard in Bean and something went quiet in Abu.
     Impatience. Impatience. Impatience. When Bean and Abu were little it was what I seemed to give them the most.
     And they responded in kind.
    With impatience for me. With each other.

     And it's hard to enjoy each other's company when all you feel is impatience.

    Then Baby Blueberry starting growing underneath my heart. But that wasn't what changed me.
 
     Two things...two random conversations that probably took up less than five minutes of time but shifted the view- my view.

    I was watching a friend with her toddler and he spilled some water on his coloring book. She wasn't happy about it, but she calmly helped him clean it up and they continued on with the activity. No impatience. And he learned just as much about being careful and not making a mess than my kids did with all my impatience and muttering under my breath and frustration.

    Second: I was talking with someone who had experienced a later in life baby too. This baby had came along right when they had decided to stop trying. When she had decided she was done with babies. Something I was feeling a lot of when I found out about Blueberry. Especially with a 11 and 9 year difference between Bean, Abu and Blueberry.
    But at that moment I realized I could shape the story- the story Blueberry would hear her entire life- how Mom was impatient right from the start because she made a mess in Mommy's life. Or I could write the story- my story- her story- OUR STORY- to celebrate her arrival.
      At that moment I decided I was done- as much as any Mommy can be- I'm not a saint- but I decided to give up impatience.

     I tried it with Bean and Abu. Teaching myself to handle spills and accidents with patience. That was DIFFICULT!!! But the difference in them started right away. They were less tense, and just as careful.

     And when Baby Blueberry arrived. I continued teaching myself to be less impatient.

   So when I tried to paint my basement posts with Baby in tow, I should have realized that she would brush up against the fresh paint with her pretty sweater. She doesn't understand wet paint. I took the sweater off her to run it under some water and soap and try to save it. I turned my back for less than thirty seconds.
    I turn around and she has taken my paint brush and is HAPPILY slapping layers of thick paint on the post. Dripping it across the floor in huge puddles. It's covering her pants and her shirt. I quickly grab her because she's now standing in wet paint on a cement floor and I don't want her cracking her head open. And when I grab her, - her little toes start sliding in the paint and she's starts laughing at the sensation of wet paint in between toes. And then she starts kicking her feet in the puddle, enjoying the squishy mess- huge belly laughs fill the air.
   Her sisters come over and start laughing. Baby Blueberry's dimple is showing and her eyes are sparkling. And we're covered in paint and mess.
    At that point I realize I could get mad but she's talking to me and I realize she's saying, "help Momma. help Momma."
    She was just trying to help me paint and it probably looked like so much fun.
   I could cry because the mess is huge.
   Or I could laugh.

   And because it seemed like the best option- I laugh right along side her and her sisters. I have Abu grab the camera and snap a shot. Then I haul Blueberry to the bath and clean her up. Abu tries to help clean by laying down toilet paper on the mess but it actually makes it worse because by the time I can start cleaning- it has stuck to the drying paint.
    I'm tired and almost crabby by the time I get it cleaned up because it's late and it takes so long but impatience- that emotion isn't hanging around us- and I tuck three happy kids into bed...two older sisters still grinning over the mess the Baby made.
      And one little kiddo who was happy that she helped Momma. 

    The moral of the story: if you see me being patient.- know that I'm really working very hard on it underneath my calm exterior. It has taken me a lot of work to get there but I do know I like my parenting style better if IMPATIENCE stays away.

    That and keep the paint can up on the counter while painting. ;-)
   

Day Sixteen- It was an accident!!

   Parenting is not for the weak of spirit. It's takes courage, guts and a strong stomach. A tons of patience, quite a bit of self sacrifice and the ability to laugh.
   If you don't want to clean bedsheets in the middle of the night or search poop for swallowed toys or be mortified by the outrageous things kids can say, then I would stay away from parenthood. It's not for you.

   If you want a new adventure all the time, if you want to feel just how much love the human heart can hold, and if you're up for sleepless nights, then parenthood will be your grandest venture.

   I hope, by being in this world, I have at least raised two wonderful children, ready to make the world a better place just by being who they are. And that's as sappy as I'm going to get in this blog entry. Because I'm a Mom, I could go on for pages about all the great things I think my kids are capable of or how many things they have done that have made me smile. I won't but I will share a funny story about Bean to remind us that children are a blessing, even when they have stretched our patience.

  Bean, age 4 and Abu, age 2, are quick. And they're good at working together when they want to. I had only left the room for a few minutes when I came back into the living room to find that my beautiful white couch had been colored with Crayola crayon on the entire back. 
  Their movements are fast, as their little hands work on this big blank canvas. And it's not light crayon colors they have picked to make their masterpiece. No, it's blue and red. On a white couch. Their 'painting' is loud and vibrant. I close my eyes and take a deep breath before I speak. It's better for them if I take a few extra seconds to compose myself.
   They just grin and show me their picture. Oh, kids. After a bit of scolding and reminding them that they can color all they want on their art paper. But not Mommy's furniture. I clean the couch and surprisingly it comes completely off with nothing more than warm water and some Dawn soap. Amazing.

   Then a few days later Bean decides she needs to draw a picture on the wall near her toys. I sighed and scrub some more. It comes off, mostly.

   Next, Bean paints the kitchen blue. I had just left to use the potty for one minute while they were busy painting some paper. One minute. That was it. A Mom does have to go potty sometimes, after all. And while I was gone she decided the cupboards needed new fronts. Most of the blue comes off them. Even today I can still see a bit in the seams. Oh, well.

   This went on for quite a few weeks, where she was just constantly testing us. It was taxing and I was growing impatient with her. And she knew it too. Because with every new offense I was quick to send her to her room and not even listen to why she was trying to paint the walls or climb into the cupboards or push things down the drain. It didn't matter anymore, I was so tired of cleaning up after her. Part of me loved that she was a little scientist and was trying to figure out how things worked, the other part of me needed a break.

  One day I had finished making spaghetti for dinner. I had dished out the girls' noodles but the sauce was still in the jar. It would be easy enough to spoon a couple of spoonfuls of the sauce on the hot noodles when we set down to eat. Bean was hungry and impatient to eat but I told her to wait a second while I went and got hero hottie from the bedroom.
    He was on the computer and wanted to show me something. So quickly I looked but it was too long. Not more than a minute or two but we had young children. It was a minute or two too long.
   Suddenly Bean comes running into our bedroom. Her eyes are wild and panicked. Her voice is frantic when she speaks. "It was an accident. It was an accident."
   Oh, no. What did this kid do now? Hero hottie and I rush into the kitchen and freeze. My mouth falls open as I survey the damage done to my kitchen by a tiny four year old. It's beyond believing and we just stand there for a second, trying to collect our thoughts.
   Bean is right behind us. "It was an accident." She's not being blamed for this mess.
   Spaghetti sauce covers every surface of the kitchen from floor to ceiling. The red sauce forms nice patterns of splatter droplets all over the white walls and ceiling and it looks like a crime scene. The heaviest drops are on the ceiling right above where she had been standing and travel across the entire breadth of the kitchen, where they go right on down the opposite wall from where she was and onto the floor.
   We look at her about to ask her how it happened. She interrupts, shaking her head. "It was an accident."
   She's definitely thinks she's in trouble for this mess. And a mess it is.
   I glance at Hero hottie and we both break into uncontrollable laughter. It was the worse mess she had ever made and 'It was an accident.' What must she have thought when she saw the spaghetti sauce everywhere and knew I was tired of her making messes on purpose. I'm pretty sure she thought she would be in time out forever.
   She probably thought, "Oh, no. Mom's really going to mad this time. I have to convince her right from the start, even before she sees it, that 'It was an accident.'"
    Apparently, she couldn't wait for us to dish up and she decided to put her own sauce on her spaghetti. But somehow, she got her spoon in the jar at just the right angle that when she went to pull it out, she must have caught it on the inside edge and it went pop, sending an arc of mess everywhere. Somehow, and only Bean could make a disaster of this size in less than one minute, the spoonful of spaghetti sauce managed to cover everything in round splats of wall staining red.
    It took over two hours for me to scrub up that mess and it was still stained no matter how much elbow grease I put into it.

   Now days, when ever a mess is to be had, we know which kid to ask first. And her first response is always, "It was an accident." She never means to make a disaster zone, it just seems to happen.
  But at least, now she's old enough to clean up her own messes. :)