Our house is a mess.

Our house has basically been a mess since we moved in, but it’s been messiest in the four years since the twins were born because taking care of small humans takes a lot of work, and sometimes, it’s all we can do at the end of the day to stare at the scattered toys and papers and books and crayons and say “meh. I’ll worry about it tomorrow.”

It’s gotten better. A few weeks ago, in anticipation of some friends coming up to visit, Kyle and I dove into a whirlwind cleaning spree, throwing out so many things and leaving the main living areas of the house look more “lived in” than “disastrous.” Our entryway now has a nice little set of cubbies for everyone’s shoes (or at least everyone whose shoes are below a size 5). Our bathroom, while not spotless, looks nice and usable. Our dining room is usable. Our kitchen is still a disaster, but I think we need a full day for that alone, so I find it forgivable. 

But the house is a mess anyway. And I have lots of reasons for it, like my increasing physical disability (update on the CPAP thing: definitely getting more restful sleep, but that’s just one problem solved, and my fingers and toes and everything have been in pain for about two years now, so let’s see what happens there) and the fact that all three of my children have some sort of special needs, visible and invisible. Frankly, as long as people aren’t tripping over things or existing in filth, that’s good enough for me. 

But that said, I still get a sinking feeling whenever something happens. Fellow parents know what I mean.

Something like the twins are being too quiet, so I go to investigate and find that they’ve gotten into our supply of foaming hand soap and used it to create a rave. Things like they’re playing tattoo shop and have covered themselves with marker drawings or they’re playing beauty parlor and have painted themselves and the couch with nail polish. How did they get the nail polish? I have no idea. It wasn’t there a second ago. Twins are their own mischief engine.

It happened today. Carrie was playing school with me, using the wall and her magic wand as the pointer to teach me words; I obediently repeated the words she said as she said them (“cat,” “Baby Box,” “DJ Catnip,” “Mercat,” “Cat Rat,” because we are on a Gabby’s Dollhouse kick) and ignored it when she used the wand to scratch at the wall as if drawing. After all, it’s a plastic magic wand, so it wasn’t going to leave a mark. And then Isaac joined in and it was all good fun.

Except Isaac did not have a wand.

Isaac had a crayon.

And I had that sinking feeling, because I imagined someone coming into my house and seeing crayon all over the living room walls, which are themselves a disaster. The chair rail is cracked in half in one place, held on with duct tape. The paint has peeled off in other spots, and there’s a large white plaster patch underneath the window AC unit. When I can trust the kids more to be less destructive, I’m looking forward to really making it look gorgeous. Maybe I’ll paint some designs on one wall or maybe I’ll just hold off until the economy figures out what the fuck it’s doing and save any further painting/chair rail destruction for the inevitable renovation that I’ve been vaguely planning in my head since we bought the house.

But right now, there is crayon on the wall. Marker on other walls and on all of our furniture. Our couches have nail polish and a lot of mystery stains, most of which are water but some of which are probably something else that I couldn’t identify if I tried. Our carpets are just sad and waiting to be torn up and replaced with vinyl. 

It’s embarrassing on some level. I remember friends I had when I was really young who had been in foster care for a little while. Their mother was so afraid they’d be taken again that she would bleach the walls of their house. Any mess was a disaster because she never knew if a social worker would show up. And that was always a fear in the back of my mind, maybe based in that or some off handed comment by some other adult in my life when I was young, that if you didn’t keep a perfectly Martha Stewart Living esque home, someone would come and take your children away.

I hate that. 

Because the truth is, my kids are happy and healthy. They scribble on the walls because they feel safe at home. Are they supposed to? No. Did they get in trouble for it? Yes. But honestly, I’d rather have a home where my kids feel safe enough to do something like color on the walls than a home where they’re so afraid of messing up that it gives them an anxiety complex. I want them to know that no matter what they do, no matter how messy things get, they are loved and they are safe. Nobody in this house will ever stop being loved because of crayons on the walls or mystery stains on the couches or ground up crackers in the carpet. And they’ll be helping to clean up those things, as they always do, because when you make a mess, you clean it up. 

But they’re safe. They’re happy. And that’s what really matters.