I proudly admired my clean house. I had spent the entire morning cleaning,
straightening, re-arranging, and folding laundry. Not bad for a mother of three children all
between the ages of four and four months.
My spirits were high and I found myself whistling a happy tune as I
pulled on my boots to go and fetch the mail.
It was a chilly autumn day and I stopped on the path to take in all the
fall colors. The sugar maples were at
the peak of their color, bright red foliage mixed in with the yellows of the
birch and walnut and browns of the oak.
It was but a moment it seemed, and then I was pulled back to reality by
the muted cries of the baby coming from inside the house. I sighed heavily as I picked up my pace,
reaching the mailbox a moment later.
Inside I found no less than three bills.
I crinkled my nose at the envelopes as I hurried back toward the house. By the time I reached the door, the baby was
screaming as if he was being tortured. I
ran to pick him up, only then noticing the chaos around me. My four year old had every piece of felt food
from her play kitchen strewn about. My
eyes widened in surprise. I was outside
for only a few short minutes! In my
arms, the baby was still crying.
Hiccupping, actually and his eyes were red and puffy from the
tears. I shook my head and then moved
from the back living room into the dining room, and then into the front living
room. First, I needed to rock him to
sleep and then I would deal with the mess.
Unfortunately, however, when I reached my destination, I was confronted
with an even bigger mess. All the
clothes I had just finished folding were thrown this way and that. They were in messy piles and shoved under the
couch. They were in the hallway and some
even lay on the first two steps of the staircase. I dropped heavily into the relining chair,
defeated, deflated. My two year old had
beaten me once again.
