It is another Saturday, my 7 year old is building Lego. The lounge is a mess with evil pieces of Lego everywhere for mum to tread on. My 5 year old is somewhere up the garden, she has taken a scourer and is covered in mud. Following her up the garden I find her cleaning garden trays, so harmless but messy. So why do kids love a mess? And why do us adults hate it? Without children my house would look like a show home, a palace, who am I kidding? It would be tidier, I would not feel so tired all the time and so would be more motivated to clean and dust and be the model housewife. My house and garden know that kids live here, anyone that walks through the door knows kids live here. Does anyone with kids have a house that they feel is as tidy as they would like it?

Life before our children, my mess was my mess, but there were no toys scattered everywhere, no Lego to tread on. The mud was left outside, not proudly brought in. The walls were not drawn on, they were clean without sticky finger marks. Also the toilet was always flushed, very rarely did I find something that needed flushing. Now if we have visitors, whether it be the Sky television man or a friend, I have to remember just in case.  This is a lesson learnt due to the Sky man visiting and playing around with the router and wires, he was here a while.  The router is right by our downstairs toilet. As he left I could smell something not good, I checked the toilet and there it was. I am hoping to this day that he did  not smell it, so embarrassing. I am so glad that he did not need to use it.

We are now on a water meter, how do you make a child understand not to waste water? My 7 year old is obsessed with washing his hands, it is good that he washes them but he uses a lot of water and never puts the plug in the sink.  My 5 year old is now in the garden playing with water, she loves it. Thankfully we have a water butt, but she is soaked and the patio is soaked. She is playing with a bowl, the watering can and a cup. It looks like she is making some strange potion as mud is also involved, so good messy fun. It looks like she will need a bath later, another job for mum.

Today I’m looking at the never ending washing pile, wondering how much of it actually needs washing. Do your children wear something for 5 minutes then throw it on the floor? Mine do, they then will not wear it later claiming it is dirty. I lose track of the clothes I find over the house not knowing what is clean and what is dirty. I wonder how much money I spend in electricity and how much time I waste washing clean clothes.  I am now looking at the full washing line wishing the washing fairies would visit, collect the washing in and put it away for me. No such luck for me, the kids are playing and my husband is again playing games on the computer, to be fair though he was up again at 6.00am with our 7 year old.  Why do young children get up so early on a day off? He could have stayed in bed till 8.00am and it would not have mattered. I struggle with a 6.30am start on a weekday, 6.00am on Saturday I really have problems with.

So anyway back to Saturday, the washing needs to come in and put away.  Then more washing needs to go in the machine. The kids bedrooms need attention and I need to vacuum the house amongst other tasks. Meanwhile my 5 year old is enjoying making a muddy mess. The joys of being mum, to much to do and so little time as always.