It’s critical to remember that the child you have at five months old is not the same as the child you have at fifteen months old.
The key difference here is MOVEMENT.
A stationary child is perfection. They sit, they smile, they let you clean without interference. Heavenly.
A moving child is a nightmare on legs. They run, they destroy, they undo everything you do the second after you did it.
When you have a five month old who sits and smiles, it’s quite easy to keep a nice clean home. It’s understandable how you could walk into a friend’s house and judge her and her Lord of the Flies children. ‘How hard is it, Melissa? You filthy broad.’
Give her a break. Poor old Melissa has moving children.
When your child starts to move, you won’t stand a chance of keeping things tidy. Even if you removed every item from your home and lived in an empty shell, your child would smuggle in rocks from outside and scatter them around like tiny shards of rebellion digging into the soft underbelly of your poor, tender feet.
We’ve established that children enjoy the putting of all the things on the floor. Children also spill things. All the things. Even things with lids will somehow find a way to spill. Food, drinks, nappies. All on the floor. They also love to break things and rub filthy hands on things and lick ALL THE THINGS.
It’s adorable of you to think you’d be able to keep on top of it. That every time something was put on the floor, you’d be there to grab it and put it back in its rightful place.
Let’s imagine that universe.
Your only job is to replace what your child has pulled out. You cannot go to the toilet. You cannot make food. You cannot turn your head. You cannot do a damned thing all day except put away what your child has pulled out.
At some point in the day you leave some of the things for a few minutes so you can get something else done. You’ll get back to it later, you tell yourself. But later comes and your child drops his nappy, and a turd rolls onto the kitchen floor. Obviously, that takes priority. So you deal with that while he pulls out some more things.
A little bit later, you try to get back to the tidying, but your child is hungry. And tired. And demands a ball you don’t even own, and screams at you for 24 minutes. And the phone rings. And later never comes. And by the time he goes to bed, he’s created seventeen times more mess than you started with, and you have a little sob, grab a glass of wine and sit down to watch TV because you’ve earned it.
And this is why our homes look like a scene from Lord of the Flies. Unless we have people coming over, and then we throw everything into a washing basket and chuck it in a garage or cupboard five minutes before they arrive. Tada!