Yes, I'm THAT Mom with THAT House

My friends and family know that my house is kept much differently than theirs. You see, I am that Mom, and this is that house. At my house, it is pretty much anything goes. Don't visit if you don't like pets. We have a house full and often foster more. We have plenty of dogs, a cat, fish, and even a pet dragon! Dog hair is everywhere. (Don't wear black. It's kind of an unwritten rule.) Pets may come and go, but the pet hair is a constant!

My house is always messy; always disorganized. We do arts and crafts projects on the living room and kitchen tables. My floors are rarely clean. We sweep. We mop. But oh we mess! At any given time you are likely to find these things on our floors: glitter, glue, paint, play doh, flubber/slime, dog pee (yeah it happens), stickers, nail polish, beads, jewels, flower petals, etc. This is normal in our home. We don't mind. We love glitter. I joke that my daughter grows glitter in her scalp. No matter how much her hair gets washed, her scalp always glitters! Go figure!

We make jewelry. We make artwork. We have made our own play dough, flubber, glitter glue, bird houses, bird feeders, and kitty condos. We make all sorts of things that others would never even think about making. We even make our own laundry detergent. Oh you might also find the floor a bit gritty with salt and sugar as we often make bath salts and sugar scrubs in the kitchen. That does tend to get a bit messy:) When my daughter can't think of a good project, she has a go-to project that she loves. She likes to get empty jars and paint them. Sometimes she fills them with water and glitter and beads and calls them snow globes!

The thing is, I had my daughter at an older age. I was well into my 43rd year when she was born. She is my miracle, my lifetime achievement! She is terribly spoiled with things.  We have a house full of toys that rarely get played with. But we definitely use our arts and crafts supplies. We are always doing some sort of project. We save all sorts of things that could be used in crafts! What you throw away we will try to find a way to make useful. Really, doesn't paint and glitter make everything nicer?

Other kids know that when they visit our house, there will be some sort of project offered. Sometimes the kids just come up with their own projects. Sometimes I have things ready for them when they arrive. My own daughter spends most of her home time sitting at that little table in the living room with her crafts. She is four. She loves it! When other kids come over I often throw a big old shirt on them, point them to the crafts area and let them have at it. They all love it. Kids are able to do things in my house that their own parents might not allow due to the mess factor. Not much is off limits in our house...even that 10,000 bead set that promises to be headache inducing for all parents!

I realize that most other Moms spend a lot of time cleaning their houses. Many of you would cringe at walking into our disorganized, glittery, gritty mess of a home. But as I mentioned, I'm an older Mom. I don't have time to clean the house when I could be creating some art with my baby girl! After working all day, the last thing I want to do is spend a few hours cleaning the house. Especially when I could spend that time making play doh critters or painting a cardboard box to look like a rocket ship! When my daughter grows up I don't think she will look back and say "our house was always so messy". No, I really think she will have such great memories of all the things we did, the things we made, in that house. I don't want her to ever think that I would rather clean than spend time with her. When we do clean up, I try to make it fun for her as well. She likes cleaning with me when we can talk and sing and make it into a game. We do have to clean up our art supplies quite often or they would take over the house! We do have to sweep away a layer of glitter and sugar every few days. But by and large, we don't worry too much over this house or how it looks.

We have fun. We have love. We are making memories here! What's a little mess?