Do you ever see one of those saying on facebook, or pinterest? Perhaps it’s a pillow that someone spent hours knitting by hand? Or a few words with a famous person’s name at the bottom? A catchy phrase that makes you laugh or think about your life? You stop and breath it in for a moment. It’s a good saying. Maybe you should hang it up and start to live by it as well. But you know yourself better than that. And even if you could pick a catch phrase that defines you in 5 words or less, you are way too flaky to. How can you pick a line that describes you so permanently? Permanently enough to hang on your wall. Permanent enough to make a hole in your wall! I can’t commit to that. I can’t even commit to a permanent hole in my wall, much less the saying that goes with it. Thank goodness for command strips or my walls would be bare. I often admire people with tattoos for that very reason. They committed to something FOREVER.

I’m definitely not one of those people with a phrase. Not one of those people with a proverb or saying to live by.

I just don’t live consistently enough. I don’t have that kind of focus. I pursue the path of least resistance some weeks. I pursue making your children independent other weeks. Some weeks I pursue diverse eating. Last week I got on a kick that they are spoiled rotten and signed up to donate lunches that I plan on making them pack and deliver with me. Some weeks I freak out and put away all the electronics for fear they are going to have no executive function and the wi-fi is going to burn a hole in their brains. The next week I give them free reign because, well because I just got a really cool new book for my book club that I want to read right now.

Sometimes I feel like there is nothing consistent in our house at all. As soon as you get four kids summer clothes folded up neatly and ready for the new season, the weather turns, someone has a growth spurt, or one of the twins decides to take all that hard work and pull it all out and throw it around the room while you turned your back for a second.

As soon as you get into a schedule with soccer, baseball, therapy, mommy and me classes, the gym, school, and after school, as soon as you book your sitter to cover the stuff you can not, get the school supplies sorted, the sports stuff organized, the semester changes and you have to start all over again with new after school days, new sports, new mommy and me class times, new therapy sessions.

One of the few things that is doesn’t seem to be changing in our house is the growing deterioration. The more kids that pile up in here, the more it’s in shambles. I’m not talking about the toys. Everyone with kids knows the toy mess is inevitable and lives with it. The painful moment you step on those tiny legos. Or stubbing your toes on a tricycle while trying to tip toe in the dark past the babies room. Or coming downstairs at the end of the day and having not an iota of energy left to pick up all the plastic, furry, wooden things that cover your basement floor so thickly that all you can do is drag your feet in a ‘wax on, wax off’ effort, making a small path to the couch so you can sit down and watch some mindless TV.

The deterioration I’m talking about is the bigger stuff. The fraying couch. The stained and no longer fluffy duvet. The dents, scrapes and marks on the walls.

Adam often asks me to replace them. My answer is always the same, “Absolutely NOT.”

Then I calmly explain that I yell at the kids enough. Too much, really. Please, please do not give me something else to yell at them about. When they spill their sticky sodas on the couch I show them how to clean it (if I’m in the pursuit of independence mode, that is.). When they throw toys down the stairs, for the hundredth time even though I’ve asked them not to do it at least a thousand times, the new dent is hardly noticeable next to the old ones. And I didn’t even bother to magic erase the last pen scribble that one of those denying, lying rascals did in the back room.

Hey, what can I say? Not much except…

Please Excuse the Mess, We are Busy Making Memories.