Every few hours, at night only, you hear a loud "Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!" coming from the playroom.
This has been going on for months.
I assume that a live chicken has not, somehow, gotten in there and is subsiding on cookie crumbs. I assume Dave is not secretly breeding chickens. It's one of the kids' trillion toys gone haywire. I am not even sure which one.
I just don't care. I have declared the toy room a perfect-free zone.
Sure, I like the rest of my house to look relatively uncluttered. I grew up with a dad who was a dedicated pack rat, and I used to make up for the neatness I never had. I'd spend hours at a stretch trying to match up all the pieces from the kids' games and putting things in order. No more. Arrest me, Martha Stewart!
If we've learned anything from our kids, it's that perfection actually comes in all shapes and forms. And that the word itself is highly overrated—"imperfect" can be just as wonderful. That's our playroom, one big, beautiful mess.
What sort of "perfect" have you given up?
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I had "pet" chickens as a child! We had eggs, and that was fine, but when one of our buddies ended up in the stew that was a bit angst-producing! Poor Pecker and Pitty Pat (yes, really, those were two of them). Thing is, they were delicious....
ReplyDeleteThat one in the playroom will give it up once the batteries run out--hope it doesn't have a solar charger in it!!!
Speaking of giving up, I've given up "stuff." We're pretty much down to essentials with the "less is more" attitude. We don't have cable TV (but my parents have the dish, so we don't suffer at all), we don't have a ton of clothes, toys, and "junk." Of course, when you move three times in five years it's easy to clear everything out!
Less is more! Of course, "less" doesn't necessarily mean "neat" in our case...we know how to be real slobs at times!
Ha ha ! We had a dog doing the same thing until about two days ago. I finally found the missing piece and the barking has stopped!
ReplyDeleteI've given up a lot in terms of "perfect." My mom and dad have a weekly cleaning woman and people to do yard work and I've had to realize that my life doesn't include those things. Que sera.
I love this post. I love that our kids are the ultimate teachers that perfection is not where it's at. I grew up with the attitude that if I couldn't do something perfectly, it wasn't worth doing. It was a miserable way to be that left me feeling stressed out, like I never measured up, and always fearful that I might fail and my secret would be out -- I wasn't perfect! It meant I couldn't take risks. My life was so narrow. It took my son to allow me to finally break out of that distorted thinking. Thanks for reminding me!
ReplyDeleteA lot, my house is full of therapy equipment, I have given up on organization all together, lol
ReplyDeleteZach had a toy that would go off on its own that I had to get rid of as he would get really upset and wouldnt go to bed.
ReplyDeleteMy free zone is the basement. It is the husbands zone...my husband is a slob and I like my house fairly clean. He thinks I am obsessive over cleaning, but I am not and have the average clean house, with times of having messes like right now with dishes sitting in the sink, or toys on the floors. The basement is a pig sty...I hate it, but am sick of cleaning up after grown men, and refuse to do it anymore down there. I dont sit down there and cant stand it down there.
Realising one day, out of the blue, that children don't have to be perfect for their parents to love them. Whoa.
ReplyDeleteDon't know where I gathered the opposite idea, but I've always aimed for perfection in my person and endeavors, and my little boy is teaching me that I didn't need to, and neither does he! It's so freeing!
Perfection? None to be found around here. When I lived alone (oh, those long years ago) my apartments were always as neat as a pin. My books were perfectly ordered, my bathrooms always clean.
ReplyDeleteOur house is OK now. I certainly clean the toilet A LOT with four boys in the house. But the clutter that builds here and there? I can hardly see it anymore. If I did, I might just lose what's left of my mind.
We, too, have had our share of wayward toys over the years. The most recent was Sophie's doll that had some kind of motion sensor in it. The whole thing went wacky. We'd hear it calling "oooooooooo!" and "mama!" at all hours. Thankfully no one was either a) in love with or b) afraid of the toy. It just simply ceased to exist one day.
If you decide to look for it, start with the Little People farm set.
:)
Ellen I have given up on Perfection as a rule. What's the point? I can clean the living room baseboards, carpet, organize Faith's toys and pick up random cat hair balls and in half an hour it's all back the same way! I just can't win! It's impossible! LOL! We have had a few toys like this too and I must admit I have chucked them in the garbage!
ReplyDeleteI love, love, love ghost stories but every time a toy starts going off on it's own, it scares the bejesus out of me. Until I had children, I didn't know that a toy will do that when the batteries are *dying*.
ReplyDeleteFunny, I was just thinking about the perfection thing this morning. When I lived alone, I would use one of my days off to thoroughly the clean the house to perfection. Two hours cleaning a bathroom? No problem? Four hours cleaning the kitchen? Sure! Now, I'm lucky if I can get 15 uninterrupted minutes to do ANYTHING, let alone clean. Gone are the days of perfection and doing a job from start to finish in one time slot. Everything is done piecemeal now and NOTHING is perfect. I've learned to settle for "good enough" but it hasn't been an easy transition!
Since we live in an apartment the size of a shoe box, we have given up a few things:
ReplyDeleteHaving our own bedroom (Emily's crib is in there with us)
Our living room (it is full of toys and therapy equipment)
My closet space (I now share it with Emily and she might have more clothes than me)
Our kitchen counter (it is filled with medicine, bottles, syringes, etc.)
We have never been especially neat, but with stuff everywhere and no room to move it can get a little crazy sometimes! We really need to move, but that isn't going to happen right now - so we are learning to make do.
We never had that problem, we didn't have many toys with batteries when we were kids!
ReplyDeleteAs for giving up on perfection I have accepted that I a going to get muddy at work, I work with animals and staying clean just isn't going to happen! Now I just shower when I get home!