Shayna Gehl of The Disheveled Parent shared her day with us. I am hoping you all had a better day than this…but we’ve all been there before.
So this is the situation. I wake up and walk into my kitchen. There are dishes everywhere. Clothes are strewn all over the apartment. Some are actually clean (I think) and folded. I am not sure where they are, but I think they are under the dirty piles somewhere. There are dust bunnies from our wool rug that gather if I don’t vacuum every other day. (It’s been three days.) My daughter has been pile-driving them like they’re candy. She then spends the next 20 minutes hacking them up like the cats, but there seems to be an addictive quality to them as I notice her swiftly crawl on to the next hairy victim and pop it in her mouth.
I haven’t showered in 4 days. I would say it’s close to a record but I go to Canada every year with my dad and cousins and relish the opportunity to use camping as an excuse to go 7 days without a shower. Four days is child’s play although I wouldn’t want to flaunt myself in public. I feel I am doing myself, my children, and the greater general public a favor by staying inside for the time being. Besides, I have plenty to accomplish. To start, the bathrooms need to be cleaned, I need to vacuum, and the recyclables and garbage need to go out. I have quite the chore ‘shopping list’ (mental note: add grocery shopping to the list. We have no food.) of chores that need to be done. The list came easily but getting the work done is the hard part for more reasons than one.
To start, I need coffee before I can begin doing anything because it’s 6 am. I can’t get to the coffee because the recyclables and garbage are piled up in front of the coffee beans….and I can’t take them out because I need to shower before I leave the apartment. I start making my way to the shower. I would love to say I just hopped in allowing my day to officially begin. What fun would that be? Both kids wake n’sync and I say bye, bye, bye to my fantasy of being showered and caffeinated before my posse joins me. Now with both kids up, I need to get breakfast going.
The kitchen area is a disaster. The dishwasher loaded with clean dishes (my ONLY saving grace) still needs to be unloaded to be re-loaded. The sink is filled with dirty dishes so high I can’t see the faucet. There isn’t even an inch of space to set anything on. I only have minutes before toddler starts making demands or simply helping himself to tortilla chips. I debate trying to hand-wash a few dishes to access the faucet to get water boiling for oatmeal. I realize I am out of dish soap= going out in public and have no counter space to dry them on. Speaking of showers, I need to get a sponge to clean the bathrooms… back to the laundry issue. Or was it breakfast? I could always order delivery (huge perk of living in NYC. You can get delivery every meal of the day.) but I don’t have any room for the extra garbage. I need to do something here. Vacuuming? The bag is full and needs to be dumped out but I already tightly knotted (from all my camping experience) it sealing its garbage chute fate. Plus, I am in my underwear. There is just something wrong about that. Equivalent to the Seinfeld episode of ‘bad naked’.
What am I doing anymore and for goodness sake why don’t I have a coffee yet?! I am starting to get a headache. The kids are hungry, I am hungry and decaffeinated, the apartment is a mess, it’s 6 am and I am standing in my underwear unable to do anything with a (now pounding) headache. These circumstances usually call for a nice glass of wine, but it’s way too early even for me and I can’t enjoy it under the circumstances. There is only one real solution here that can be accomplished by all parties and may just be the golden ticket to repairing some sort of sanity (or at least buys me a few hours before traipsing my gross self and the posse to the store when it opens). Back to bed we go.
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Shayna Gehl used to be a mental-health counselor, now she just needs one. Follow her on her (often solo) parenting adventures in the city that never sleeps!