This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SweepTheMess #CollectiveBias
One thing is for certain when you become a parent: life is going to get much messier. Despite any clean-freak tendencies, amazing organization, or constant hovering over your child, your kids are going to make messes. Often. But, I know that if I choose, I can see my children, my self, and my parenting as a beautiful mess. Because even though my home may be messy almost immediately after cleaning, these messes say something about my life, and that something is quiet beautiful.
The ways children make messes are pretty endless. And you never know what they may make a mess out of next. In our home there has been entire boxes of cereal dumped out onto the floor.
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There has been pink nail polish left on our carpet and on our dresser, Wite-Out painted onto legs and bed sheets, and a container of powdered graphite emptied out onto our carpet (which did not come out).
Then there is the shedding of clothes as they play dress up, change outfits, and strip off socks, shoes, and jackets wherever they please. There are endless pieces of papers, crayons, pencils, pens, and colored pencils all over my home, not to mention the kitchen utensils, pots, pans, oven mitts, laundry baskets, and more as my children play pretend.
And of course there are the messy meal times, complete with stained bibs and clothes, cups tipping over, and bathing that needs to be done afterward. Plus, there is just the food crumbs, wrappers and trash dropped onto the floor throughout the day.
And don’t even get me started on the diapering and potty messes! From diaper removing children, poop covered cribs, pee on the floor, diaper explosions, and messed underpants, the smell and frustration of bowel movements is certainly one of the grossest messes of parenthood! And when your child gets sick, there’s the booger streaks on your clothes and furniture, piles of tissues, and cleaning up of vomit wherever it may end up (floor, car, sheets, or yourself!).
Yes, becoming a parent is a messy ordeal. Really messy at times, especially when multiple children are involved (and lucky me has always had multiple children!).
But, children are more than little mess makers, destroyers of things, or tornadoes. Because there is beauty to the messes, yes even the disgusting ones. Because, behind every mess their is a bigger message:
- Dumped out cereal? Means my child is learning about gravity, practicing pouring, and learning what sound pouring cereal makes when it hits the floor.
- Forgotten Milk Cup? Likely meant I was more concerned about getting my child safely in and out of a vehicle than if their cup was MIA, and that I had more cups elsewhere.
- Nail polish and Wite-Out Painting? Means they used their fine motor skills to unscrew the lid, and are working on their creativity.
- Powdered Graphite Spill? Means my child is curious about something they’ve never seen before.
- Messy Meal Times? My children are learning to feed themselves, are trying new foods, are exploring new textures with their fingers and faces, and are still getting the nutrition they need. It also means they are learning how to cut, spread, and pour for themselves. It means memories of food cooked together in the kitchen.
- Trash and wrappers on the floor? Allows me the opportunity to teach about the importance of cleaning up our messes. I love that my soon-to-be five year old twins can now sweep up messes with our O-Cedar Angler Broom and then mop with our O-Cedar Spray mop. What I love even more is how much they enjoy doing so!
- Shedding Clothes? This means my children have learned the important, independent skill of dressing and undressing themselves, as well as self-expression and individuality as they play dress up or put on clothes that they really wanted to wear instead.
- Shedding Diapers? Means my child is becoming more self-aware, practicing her fine motor skills and coordination, and getting ready for potty training.
- Potty Accidents? These just means my child is still learning, but is getting one step closer to being fully trained. Plus, good, regular bowel movements just mean my child is healthy (even if they don’t happen in the correct location).
- Art supplies everywhere? It just means my children are budding artists, who love to create, draw, color, and are at the same time developing wonderful pre-writing and fine motor skills.
- Toys Scattered all over? Those toys represent the hours my children spend pretending, playing, and using their imaginations and creativity. It means they spent the day doing something other than sit in front of a screen. It means bonding with their siblings, friends, or their parents.
- Kitchen utensils in the living room? Reminds me that children don’t really need toys, and that ordinary things can become extraordinary.
- Sick Messes? Tells me that my children’s bodies are doing their job at keeping them healthy and at healing them. But, it also shows me the love and need my child has for me as they look to me for comfort, support, and healing when they are ill.
So, if you choose to, you can see past the initial mess of parenthood. You can see past the “something that needs to be cleaned up.” Every pile, every spill, every accident means something happened. And that something can usually remind us of the beauty in the end result.
As a parent, I see the chaos and then I see a full life: a life rich in happiness, hugs, play, laughter, joy, screams, talks, and love. The mess lets me know that children live here. That play is prioritized, as is adventure and freedom. The messes are only markings of my children growing up and learning, as mess making is just part of that journey. I am choosing to see beauty in it, because I know in the end, the result will be the most beautiful of all – some pretty amazing human beings I am happy to have call me mom.
Giveaway! {ENDED}
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O-Cedar “A Beautiful Mess” Giveaway
Please tell me your favorite messy parenting story and how you now realize it really just marked one of the many “beautiful messes” of parenthood.
Amanda Sakovitz says
I would love to try this broom for when my niece and nephew come visit.
Betsy says
One of my favorite “beautiful messes” is in the kitchen, after I have made a huge dinner for my family, especially when cooking something new. 🙂
Katelyn Fagan says
Sweet! Cooking together as a family is great, even if there is a mess.
Carly says
My kids painted a whole room with finger paint
Katelyn Fagan says
I hope it was washable!
Dolly says
I love the beautiful mess and it is good to see it called that. My girls are grown now and this just brought back memories of a stay at home mom. Now my daughter has kids of her own my grandchildren..How I love them and their beautiful mess.
Thanks,
Katelyn Fagan says
You are welcome! Thanks for the great comment. I’m glad that you can really see that now looking back. Gives me hope that I’m on the right track.
Melissa says
My favorite beautiful mess was just last night when my girls ate spaghetti for the first time. It was everywhere!
Katelyn Fagan says
Ha ha ha. Love it! Kind of like in the picture I included in this post! Awesome!
Rachel says
Thankyou for this post. I am trained in Early Childhood education and have 5 children and love crafts and such but find myself just considering the mess I’ll have to clean up afterwards and so putting it off. Thankyou for reminding me of the fact that children do not make mess to annoy me they are exploring, creating, growing, learning, practising skills. For me to support and encourage them means that I am contributing to the development of young people who will grow up to be contributing members of society. I feel free!
PS I also have to learn to teach them to clean up themselves, Rome wasn’t built in a day.
Katelyn Fagan says
It is really hard for me to want to bust out crafts with my kids, but YES, it’s more about letting it get to us and annoy us that is the real issue, because messes can be cleaned, but the process and the end result are really the important parts to remember.
Oh, and yeah, parenting seems to be a lot like building Rome, doesn’t it?
Jenny Richins says
I’m still trying to get behind the beauty of the messes, LOL. If only I didn’t have to clean them all up! I wouldn’t even mind so much except we have all carpet. NO hard floors. Not even in the kitchen, dining room, or bathrooms. Tell you what… I will be so much happier to let my kids be kids when I can replace the flooring to make for easier cleanup!
Although, I am grateful for the carpet cleaner I have for when little man decided to dump an entire pot of spaghetti sauce on the floor (light carpet, mind you), play in it, and then do belly flops down the stairs. Oh man… THAT was a beautiful mess!
Katelyn Fagan says
Your house is so weird with carpeted everything! I am SO grateful for our “hardwood” floors downstairs in our new apartment! So much better than our carpeted dining area in our last place!! And I can only imagine the beautiful mess your son made! Wowie!
Kim says
We have dark wood floors and they get dusty so quickly!
Esther says
Our beautiful mess is actually quite, well, beautiful! We do a lot of arts and crafts projects and glitter usually sneaks its way in there at some point so our floors quite often sparkle on any given day of the week. Worth every second of cleanup for the joy on my daughter’s face when creating her masterpieces. 🙂
Katelyn Fagan says
Love it! My daughters got these new Princess dresses and we had glitter all over the house and on everything. It really was beautiful to see. 😀
Dorothy Fancher says
My favorite mess was when my son (now 35) was about 2 and he decided to help his mama and daddy by “fixing” my car headlight. He had watched his dad change it, so he took a hammer to it. Couldn’t be mad because he was trying hard – just used the wrong tools.
Jessica says
I love that you pointed out the beauty in little messes. I always tell people “my house may not be spotless but my kids played today!”
Andrea says
Love that you can see the beautiful growth and maturing that each of those messes means. Oh, my! Don’t get me started on crib messes and self awareness. I am glad those days are almost behind us. #client
Miranda says
My favorite “Beautiful Mess” was when the triplets got into the baby powder. It only took seconds but it was one big mess. http://twitpic.com/hsfno
Sandra Watts says
It is a nice positive way to look at an other wise messy situation.
Lauren E. says
Our beautiful mess is after the dog runs around like a madman. Her fur flies, and she gets muddy prints everywhere
Kathleen Clegg says
When our kids were younger and all lived at home, we made pasta as a family. We had my husband’s brother and his family over. While the pasta was drying, we ended up having a flour fight. It was lots of fun, but oh what a mess. We were still finding flour on things a year later. A broom like this would help for sure!
Hezzi-D says
Wow! You certainly put an optimistic spin on messy days!
shaunie says
Our beautiful mess is the painting and crafting that goes on in our home. We like to paint and make things to show what we mean: (love). I am excited about the O-cedar broom because as much as we love to “mess” we also love it clean afterwards.
Carol Ezovski says
Most of my “beautiful” messes involve animals. For example, my fat cat eats so fast that he blows his cookies all over the kitchen floor on a regular basis. And the dog sheds. I could go on and on. I could use these products to clean that up.
Jenn Mc says
I have 3 young children at home they are 5, 3 and 1. The one year old loves to scoop up cat food and throw it at the dog, then laugh. The 3 year old then wants to “help” clean it up with his toy vacuum making more of a mess. I would love to try the cedar broom to see how it sweeps up this constant mess!
Katie says
Oh the messes…I’ve learned just to embrace them. I think I’d be sad if my life and home was spotless…because it would mean my little guy wasn’t around!
Cherie Montorio says
My 4 year old decided to dump a whole bottle of powder on my hardwood floor and make a snow angel in it. It was such a huge mess but part of me had to laugh cause she actually put her snow suit on to do it.
Cherie Montorio says
I would love to have the O-Cedar Angler Broom for days like those.
Katelyn Fagan says
Ha ha ha! That’s pretty cute!!
EK says
These are hilarious. I haven’t encountered many yet with my 15 month old, but I’m just waiting…
Kelley Long says
My beautiful mess occurred two days ago when (while my vacuum was out of commission ) my twins decided to make a crummy mess in the carpet. I had to sweep off the carpet with my O-Cedar broom. I like the angle on the broom because I can get into corners and the angle mimics the way I naturally hold the broom.
Hallie says
I think I have some sort of beautiful mess every. single. day 🙂