My House Looks Like an Obstacle Course

As a mom of two little ones, things are always hectic and chaotic around the house. Sometimes I feel like I’m a puppet and the kids are in control. I go to stop one of them from taking all the laundry and throwing it around the living room and the other one is off heading to the dog’s water to splash in it. I’m constantly spinning, putting out toddler fires.

I wasn’t sure that it could get much more chaotic or messy until I started training for the Tough Mudder. I already shared 11 signs you might be a mom training for a distance event that details a little of the juggling act that has to happen when you’re fitting in so many workouts, but I have to go a step further. As moms we tend to beat ourselves up. That damn mom guilt. We hold ourselves to these impossible ideas of Super Mom. We look at other moms thinking they must have it all together. We look at moms who do impossibly cute crafts and wonder why it doesn’t work out that way when our kids do them. I mean, when I let the kids play with window crayons on the back glass doors, most of it ends up on the white cabinets and doors. When I do finger painting, most of it ends up on the kitchen table. When I get a massive box of packing peanuts and let the kids play with them, the dog ends up sneaking in and eating as many as she can get her paws on.

And now, I’m doing a Tough Mudder. I’m always in my gym clothes when dropping my daughter off to preschool. I don’t think I’m fooling anyone into thinking I’ve got it all together (if they get close enough they can totally smell me and can clearly see my post-workout unwashed hair), but just in case anyone thinks that I’m even remotely put together in any form because I “have time” to do a Tough Mudder … I can assure you I’m not.

Last week, our second floor was such a disaster that it was its own obstacle course. Three hampers of clean clothes to be folded and put away, dirty clothes on the floor. Toys and tripping hazards everywhere. A sink that needed scrubbing. I wish I had a picture because it seriously looked like I lived in an episode of Hoarders. When you’re trying to “do it all,” the lowest priority item has to go. And for me, laundry and house cleaning are obviously that item. If I have 14 glasses half full of water on my nightstand, well, that’s how it has to be for the moment.

Clean clothes to be put away, always. Bonus pug tail.

Sometimes I think, “If I could just prioritize better” or “If I was more organized …” I could do it all: keep a neat house, cook every night, be home with my kids all day and manage to work as well. But the only way I really can do it all is if I gave something up, like sleep. Or the kids during the days. Or my job. But I’m not willing to give anything up so priorities have to shift. The house has to be a disaster sometimes. Clothes have to pile in stacks like this…

These clothes have been sitting on the radiator since training began. The only time anything moves is when I grab a sports bra that’s hiding.

The living room floor has to look like this during waking hours … and let’s face it, overnight sometimes.

Watch where you step!

I remind myself that one day in the very near future, my kids will be at school all day. They’ll stop splashing in toilets and dog dishes; they’ll stop being huge threats to their own safety. They’ll learn how to pick up after themselves instead of taking things back out immediately after I put something away. Once this Tough Mudder is over, I’ll be proud of myself. And not just for finishing (hopefully). I’ll be proud that I survived having my attention so divided and the house such a disaster. And then in the few days I’m sure it’ll take me to recover, I can really clean.

What takes the back seat for you when you really have to focus on something else? Laundry? Cooking? —Erin