While usually we are being quaint and adorable like a live Norman Rockwell painting, there are a few other things that get us from WHYGODWHY in the morning to Netflix-O’clock at night.

We clean things so they can be destroyed right exactly before you drop by. I don’t mean to brag, but my kids are capable of making my house a major health code violation in ten seconds flat. Sometimes I think about posting pictures of what my house looks like when it’s clean – just for reference.

Welcome to my home. Here is a picture of what my house looked like one time last week. It could also look like this more often if I had 47 maids and manservants.

Due to a current cash flow problem, we have had to reduce our Downton Abbey staff size.

Please come back in 25 years to see it like this again.

Thank you.

We are always smelling things. Pillows. Clothes. Carseats. Butts. My life is just a game of: where and what is that horrible smell? Did something die? Did someone poop? Is that a piece of pizza under there??

I just need you to know that I KNOW about the smell. Okay?

There’s only one thing worse than being stinky, and that’s been unknowingly stinky.

I am not that girl.

I have been trying to solve this mystery since Tuesday.

I appreciate your patience.

This is me, soaking in the glory that is 10 seconds of clean-house. Just let me be. I need this.

We take family photos and hang them on the wall so that we can live vicariously through those happy…and remarkably clean people.

Look at them, aren’t they precious?

Marianne Wiest Photography

Laundry. We are literally always doing laundry.

Step 1: Wash load.

Step 2: Forget.

Step 3: Smell Load.

Step 4: Hmm. Smells fine. Dry load.

Step 5: Smell dry clothes.

Step 6: Dammit.

Step 7: Re-wash and dry.

Step 8: Pull out dry clothes to fold “later” and throw them on your bed.

Step 9: Forget until you go to bed. Dammit.

Step 10: Throw clothes on floor.

Step 11: In the morning have children run through clothes until you can no longer tell what is clean.

Step 12: Throw pile back on bed because you cannot even.

Step 13: Repeat until you die.

We are keeping people alive.

We are just saving lives, one pair of adult scissors at a time.

Delivering the children. To school, from school, to birthday parties, to dance, to sports…

I’m just a girl, sitting in a minivan…praying you don’t ask me to get out.

These Lorelei Gilmore shorty shorts did not anticipate leaving the vehicle. I brought the kids and they are dressed. I can not guarantee any other kinds of hassles or formalities such as bras, pants, or shoes.

The kitchen counter. We all have our one thing that makes us feel like we might be in control. Mine is my kitchen counter. Kids engaging in WWF wrestling? Toddler screaming while being permanently velcroed to my calf? It ACTUALLY being cloudy with a chance of meatballs?

I do not care if the heavens have opened and giant chili cheese dogs are bouncing off my front porch.

I can’t control everything – but I can control one thing: and that is my kitchen counter. If you need me, I will be wiping it down for the 102nd time today.

Feeding people. I serve up three meals a day so that people can cry, fall on the floor in convulsions, and agonize over which is better: my cooking – or- starving. Then they choose starving…because my food is just. that. bad.

Insert eternal eye roll.

And then the Lord gave us wine. Thank you, Lord.

Grocery Shopping. I am making moral decisions at the grocery store.

Do I spend my life savings on organic – and feel very good about my healthy and conscientious choices?

Or…

Do I fill my cart with hormones and pesticides and feel like a money saving boss?

Life is so complicated.

I cope by buying mostly organic and hitting up Dairy Queen on the way home for lunch…because balance.

We are not searching for unsolicited advice.

Things you can do instead of give me advice:

Clean my minivan.

Get me a Roomba that eats toys.

Pour me a coffee.

Tell me I’m pretty.

That is all.

We are not judging you. 

You know what I don’t have time for?

Judging.

I do not care if your kid eats fruit snacks or cucumbers. I don’t care if you homeschool or are a working mom. I just don’t even care.

I don’t care if you don’t want kids or are on the career track. I say more power to you – and please while you’re up there, break a few glass ceilings for my girls, would ya?

I don’t think my life is harder or that I’m some sort of martyr. I think that this is exactly what I chose to do – and sometimes it is hard, because that is the nature of things that matter. Just like any great dream, it is worth the cost.

Things worth believing in are also worth fighting for. Sometimes that looks like hard work and sacrifice.

These kids – they are my dream.

And I believe in them 100%.

You do you my friend.

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This article originally appeared on Wonderoak

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