It’s Week “I Completely Lost Track” of the Great 2020 Adventure, and the house is wrecked.

It’s actually not that bad. It just feels oppressive because we are here all the damn time. And now that I am writing about it, the house would probably feel oppressive even if everything was neat and clean BECAUSE WE ARE HERE ALL The DAMN TIME. But still, everywhere I go, there is somethingin need of sweeping, tidying, scrubbing or burning. (Burn the toys! Burn them all!)

The problem is that all four of us are home basically 24/7, so more dirt is being tracked on to the floors, so no matter how often I sweep, there is always somewhere in need of sweeping. We eat all our meals at home, so there are more dishes to wash, and then there are more towels to clean from drying said dishes. And then there are the toys. Don’t get me started on the toys.

It is not fun to live in a house that feels like a toy store that was just hit by a natural disaster. But when the kids are home all day every day, a mess-free house is just not realistic. Hell, a semi-mess-free house is not realistic. Still, I look around and when I see all the messes, I get agitated.

That’s when I remember the wisdom of a wise soul at the car wash.

It was over five years ago, before I was even pregnant with Julian. I took my SUV to the car wash and even though I just had toddler Pippa at the time, the car was absolutely disgusting. The floors were covered in crushed Cheerios and spilled milk. (Oh my god, I just had a lovely flashback to how my car used to smell like a latrine whenever a bottle got lost under a seat. The horror, the horror!) There were toys everywhere. There were probably also several toddler purses because Pippa had this phase where she could not leave the house without three bags (minimum).

The car wash attendant asked what sort of wash I wanted, and I apologized about the mess in the car. He took one look at the car seat and said, “It’s a blessing! Healthy kids are messy kids! Kids stop making messes when they get sick. If there are messes, thank God. The kids are healthy.”

Looking back, it was almost as if God was talking to me through that car wash attendant, to make sure I got the one piece of parenting advice that I really needed at the time.

And it’s the one piece of advice I keep remembering, again and again, as the children keep wrecking the house as we shelter-at-home. Did they disassemble the couch and use all the pillows to build a fort in the living room? Thank God, the kids are healthy! Is the kitchen floor covered in bits of paper and glitter? Thank God, the kids are healthy! Did I just find a tractor in my closet? Thank God, the kids are healthy! As between (1) a clean house + sick kids, and (2) a messy house + healthy kids, I’m going to choose Door #2 every damn time.

p.s. As I was finishing this blog post, Julian came to me with a bag of dominos. He had been playing with the dominos and then put them all away. He brought me the bag so I could return the dominos to a shelf he cannot reach. He cleaned a mess without being asked! Hallelujah! It’s a social distancing miracle!