So this is normal....

Since the birth of my son four years ago a lot of things have gone off the radar.

Like cleaning. Which seemed a lot easier when I lived in our apartment.

Now,  our living room has slowly been converted into a playroom and our kitchen newly renovated to a filing system.Neither of which we can seem to keep clean for any great length of time.

Its not that we don't clean, its just it seems no matter how many times I actually do clean, within five minutes the mess that had been picked up is once again on the floor.

 Not to mention, on most work nights by the time we get home, have dinner and put him to bed the only thing I want to do is lounge on the couch and attempt to catch up on that popular TV show everyone is talking about. The way I see it, the mess will be there tomorrow. I will do it tomorrow.

Of course we know how that works out.

This does not bother me, I have a four year old. I have a full time job with a two hour commute. And I am a part time student. Obviously there are going to be things that tend to fall off the radar. My son is clean, he is fed. We have time together. We read. In my books these are far more important things. A mess while may be embarrassing, can be cleaned up. Even if it is eventually.

But of course having a messy house does make me feel a little less of a mom. I mean shouldn't I be able to do everything? Shouldn't I be able to keep the house clean in case someone stops by? Shouldn't I be embarrassed that my house is a mess, and needs a major vacuum job among other things?

This past weekend, my husband and I drove out to one of my best friends house to hang with her 7 month old son and husband for the evening. And when she opened the door and we stepped in, my first thought was not the adorable sleeping baby but rather

Thank god.

Her house looked a lot like my own. Toys were laid around the living room, the kitchen table an eerie resembles to my own. And for a moment I just felt this huge sense of...relief. Because I wasn't alone. Because I was normal.  You see I freight about a dirty house, afraid that by not having it perfect all the time something is wrong with me.

When in fact, the mess was normal. And  It does not make me any less of a mom that my house is not perfect.  Because there are so many like myself out there.

Rather having a dirty house makes the house lived in. It did not in fact mean that we didn't have a good time, because after five minutes it didn't bother me. I actually didn't even look around and see anything besides a family that was real. Sure things need to be cleaned, and the vacuum needs to be run, there is always something that needs to be shined a little more.

But there is always tomorrow.