mess.

Keeping a house clean with three children is a near impossible task.  There are times when we let go and times where we struggle to stay on top.  As though our lives, our daily mess, is a mountain and if we can just get on top of it all we can get perspective, we can see out, we can take it all in instead of having life happen to us.  This past week we've been engaged in the struggle.  My husband and I have been struggling to keep up with the daily chores, to stay on top, so that at the end of the day there is a sense of accomplishment, a sense of space, a fresh start for the coming day.

We are much better parents when we've let go a bit.  When we are engaged in the struggle to stay on top, we are a little more tightly wound.  Today we had guests coming over.  We were almost on top, when I heard a loud thumping coming from the yoga room.  As I approached the door, I saw my son with a wooden axe given to him as a birthday present the year before hitting a large box delivered to our house a few days before.  When I saw him, the first thought I had was "mess, more mess," when I am so close to the top.  And so I asked him, "Are you making a mess?"  It is a bizarre question, but you see, I was engaged in the struggle and here was one more obstacle on my path to....to what?

My son kept beating his axe against the box and simply said, "No, I'm carving out a hole to our cave."  I stepped off of my path to perfection and saw this moment from his perspective and it was clear: he was almost there, he'd almost made it into the heart of the cave.  Our children, mine and yours, have such incredible imaginations.  What looked for a moment like destruction and mess was in fact the climax of an epic adventure and I almost, almost spoiled it by the need to have the house tidy for guests.  I stepped out of the struggle and let go, for the day the yoga room would be theirs.  To play, to adventure, to cook, to create, to mess.  And wouldn't you know it, not long after that cavern door was blasted away, a woodland creature took up its empty nook as a cozy shelter.