Lesson Learned!

These past couple of days we've had our niece and nephew with us while our new niece gets used to her new environment outside of her mom's belly. It has been a pleasure to have them. Jessie and Tegan have enjoyed their extra playmates and we've done a few fun projects together. Of course not everything has been sweet giggles and fun. There have been tears, whining and GREAT BIG MESSES. The messes part is what I want to focus on now.

I was not a clean child, my room was almost always a mess. I can see my mom's disgusted look now in my mind as she would glance over the room I shared with my sister. As I've gotten older and now have a home of my own I've become increasingly more anal... well, perhaps there are some that would still consider my cleanliness level sub-par, but I'm happy with it and generally don't get freaked out when we've got a drop-in visitor. Well these last couple days have been a trial of my patience where cleanliness is concerned. My days have been filled with sweeping and then sweeping again (curse those wood floors), washing dirty little hands, baths and more baths, screaming out from stepping on pointy little booby traps planted by the kids, and cleaning up spill after spill. These are all things I'm used to doing but it just seems extremely magnified right now. And I can just see my mother's disgusted face turning more and more to a mocking smile that says "Ha ha ha, what goes around comes around you dirty little pig!" Actually, my mother would never say that, but you get the idea.

I finally hit a breaking point today after scanning two rooms full of toys. It was unbelievable to me how many there seemed to be. After I settled the kids with a movie I transformed into purge mode and went to town. Two garbage bags full of unneeded toys later added with major organization of what remained and I could finally breath a sigh of relief. It was tedious, but rewarding. In the end I found two library books I thought I'd soon have to pay for, puzzle pieces that I thought I'd never see again, and a lost nightgown that has been the major cause of at least two tantrums from our sweet Tegan. The look on her face when she was reunited with it was priceless.

Now the kids are dozing off (including Tegan wrapped in her nightgown), only the sound of the heater is buzzing, and I'm feeling pretty contented that only half the floor will be covered in toys tomorrow rather than the whole thing. One thing is for sure. I will not be buying my kids new toys for a long while now.