Let me start by saying, I do not frequently wash my floors. I have 4 children five and under. It can be hard enough just getting the floors free from toys and vacuumed. Washing them simply doesn’t happen… that much. Well yesterday I decided it was time.

While the children were distracted in a different room, I quickly wiped down the kitchen table and chairs, put the chairs up and went to town. I was really please with myself that the floor was finally really clean!

Later in the day I happened to glance in the mirror at myself. I hadn’t taken a shower (it was after dinner…), and my shirt was just… NASTY. Between a snotty nose and teething and bottle feeding… lets just say a fair amount had gotten on my shirt.

Now, I should pause here to point out… at this moment in time, it can be easy for me to feel frustrated that I don’t have it together. That I can’t even keep my clothes looking decent because snot happens… and teething happens… and spit up happens… and so yeah, my clothes are not my own. At every turn someone wants a ‘slice’ of me. Between a baby crying, a toddler and two young children calling ‘mom!’ ‘mommy!’ ‘mama!’… things can get… crazy. annoying. frustrating. tiring.

After dinner last night, I didn’t even check the floor. But today? After lunch I decided to actually look. Spilled Jello from toddler from last night (that I somehow didn’t see… not sure how I missed RED jello) and spilled milk (from breakfast, on the opposite side of the table where I sit)… from the same kid. I was kinda frustrated, frankly. I took the time to get on my hands and knees and scrub the floor, and my efforts were ruined in one meal. Wow.

Once I noticed my cleaning endeavors had been sabotaged, I cleaned it up, thought a moment and remembered. Remembered, that last night I read my children Love You Forever and cried… remembered that my little girl made me a beautiful little picture in Sunday School with a poem that says:

‘Sometimes you get discouraged because I am so small, and always leave my fingerprints on furniture and walls. But everyday I’m growing, I’ll be grown some day… and all those tiny fingerprints will surely fade away. So here’s a little handprint, just so you can recall… exactly how my fingers looked when I was very small.’

So taking a deep sigh… getting misty-eyed and reminding myself… dirty floors and snotty shirts- are only for a season. And maybe my older ‘mom’ friends are right… maybe, just maybe, one day I’ll miss the dirty floors and snotty shirts.