Housecleaning: I Am the Chaos Queen

Some people are planners—they make plans and those plans materialize into reality. Then there is me. I make plans and the universe laughs in my general direction. I wrote a post, asking for help on how to recover from being a messy mom. I got some great, inspirational (and thankfully realistic) responses, and I was charged and ready to go.

Everyone said you have to do the big clean first. My husband was taking vacation days, we were doing a small family trip, but had THREE DAYS at home to get stuff done. Before his time off, I was going to start in the kitchen. I wasn't feeling well, both kids were sick, but I was not going to be stopped.

Well, I cleaned about an eighth of the kitchen. By the end of the day I was taking the baby to the doctor for an ear infection, and that evening my oldest daughter vomited at the dinner table. Can you hear the laughter?

But these things happen; vacation man-help was on the way. But then I got sick, not sniffles sick, lying on the floor trying not to vomit sick. OK, so we'd lost the first day of his vacation, but we'd have our trip, and come back to conquer the house. The trip was good, but man did I underestimate how tiring it is to travel with kids. Nonetheless, I was a woman on a mission. Next morning, the husband picks up the dogs from the vet first thing, I get daughter to morning preschool, and we rock out some chores ... OR husband picks up dogs from vet, dogs pee in back of wagon, power goes out at preschool, school canceled, power goes out at home, dog pees blood on carpet (four times), husband takes dog back to vet for bladder infection, power off FOR EIGHT HOURS. SERIOUSLY, eight hours of no lights, no heat, no hot water no *&^% electricity.

Not only have I made no progress, I now have to figure out how to clean bloody urine out of the carpet! Not to mention the car. Thus far I have invested three hours, a trip to Petsmart, and 12 bucks trying to clean the car. Maybe we should just get hazmat gear for four (does this mask come in infant sizes?) and give up on that. For those of you wondering, well what did you do on the last day of "vacation"? We had kindergarten orientation in the a.m., grocery-shopped in the afternoon and lamely tried to dig out of the mounting chaos of the last week. But here is the topper: After spending an hour steam cleaning the carpeting in the back of the wagon, I left the gate open so it could dry. I came out to check on it, and a bird had flown into the car to take a dump on my single achievement (which wasn't really an achievement I later discovered from the ongoing funk). I emailed my husband this piece of news, him safely at his office, and he called me to let me know how utterly hilarious that was. Even I had to laugh ... and I hope you are having a laugh, too!