Excuse The Mess - We Live Here

My house is a mess.  

There are piles of laundry in the hallway adjacent to our bedrooms. It accumulates quicker than we can wash it. There are stacks of papers on landing pads throughout the kitchen and dining room. There are toys everywhere. EVERYWHERE.  I can’t tell you the last time I dusted. Three months ago? Four? Lucky number seven? I dunno.

When I was pregnant with my first child I mentioned to a friend that we were cleaning like crazy and getting the house ready.  Alyssa said something in response that I will never forget. 

She said, “Don’t clean too much, you are building an immune system.” 

It was just the permission I needed to put down the Lysol and bleach. I worked some Google magic and found many supporting articles and blogs posts from a bunch of people way smarter than me – people with all sorts of letters after their names, who also cautioned new moms about walling off our kids from germs and microbes.

Take for supporting documentation this fairly recent New York Times article by Perri Klass M.D. (see the letters after her name?) It’s packed with all sorts of supporting statements surrounding the theory that a house can be too clean when it comes to your kids’ immune systems. 

Now, at this point I must inform you that I’ve made a promise to myself and will now make a promise to you, that I will be as honest (brutally honest) as possible in my posts. Therefor I must confess that my kids are 8 and 5 years old. Five and a half, actually. My daughter insists that I absolutely, positively have to include the "half" because the half counts. Given their current ages, I’m pretty sure their immune systems are established.

So why am I still keeping a messy house?

Well, call me crazy, but don’t call me lazy.  We are anything but lazy.  The title of this blog is Hat-Trick Mommy. It’s a hockey term, and I’m a hockey mom, but the title is not entirely about our family’s love of hockey. The title is mostly about the multiple hats and tricks that we, as moms and dads have to wear and pull off in order to make it work. And by “it” I mean EV-ER-Y-THING.

Case in point, every morning we have to wear our chef hats, fireman hats because there are half a dozen fires to put out before school, referee hats because of the fighting, jester hats because hey, if I can’t make her laugh in the morning, she’s usually crying  and of course, chauffer hats. Then, as I sit in the parking garage at work, I look at myself in the mirror and wish there was a psychologist hat.

We are at the moment a three sport, about to become four-sport, family. Add into the equation, daisies, homework, meals, the endless stream of birthday parties, and dishes. (Dishes have to be done. Hard line.) There is simply no time to clean. Take this weekend for example: baseball game, soccer game, birthday party, charity work, minor league baseball game with the family and good friends, and that’s only Saturday. Sunday is a bit more relaxed. I have to work from 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM, but the hubby will take our son to his street hockey playoff game, and we’ll go to the in-laws’ for dinner.

If your family is like ours, you are bordering on over-extended in the family schedule. That said, its all quality, family-enriching kind of stuff! So who has time for cleaning up messes, when we're enjoying making those messes?

I once saw a lawn sign that read, “We’re raising kids, not grass.” Well, the same can be said for the inside our home. I can put it this way to you, “Excuse the mess. We live here.”

I feel in my heart that our kids will remember and cherish the time we spent together doing things as a family way more than a clean living room.  We are creating a lifetime of memories and I don't want my kids to look back on Sundays as the days we were held hostage by the broom and mop.

So if you come to our house, run your finger along the lamp shade at your own risk, ask me before you eat anything in the fridge… in case I should have thrown it out two weeks ago, and for the love of all that is holy to you, don’t call us lazy.