Daddy's Fish BowlA Clear View Of A Father's Family Experiences

Before becoming a father, I was like literally “Mr. Clean” himself.  Seriously, I was the guy with the big sign on the door stating “If you can’t remove your shoes, don’t bother knocking”.  If I got a stain on my shirt, I’d just throw it away. Yes, it was that bad.  I remember distinctively one time my buddy came to visit from out of town and I had my grocery list on the counter; he was shocked at the fact that the list contained more cleaning supplies than food, even though I barely had anything in the fridge.  I guess at that point, I’d rather be hungry than have a dirty house.  Maybe I was a little borderline OCD, but hey, who knows.  Fast forward a few years and oh how things have changed.  Kids can have that type of effect on you.  I’ve gone from leaving no spill un-cleaned to being peed on, pooped on, scrubbing marker out of the carpet and everything in between.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into when the kids came into the picture.  I tried making strict rules: no eating in the living room, drinks must stay in the kitchen, etc.  But they have all failed miserably.  Somehow, someway, the little rascals find a way to circumvent my regulations and make a mess through out the house.  To be fair, Ty isn’t that bad anymore.  But he still has his clumsy moments, although I must admit, they are few and fair in between.  Tre on the other hand, he’s ruthless! It’s like no surface is safe around him.  At least he’s no longer pooping and peeing on me, but the amount of spills and stains I clean up after this kid is remarkable.  We’re honestly at a point where Clorox, Pine Sol, and Dawn should be giving us endorsement deals based on how much of there product we go through in any given time period. 

Making the transition from “cleanliness is everything” to “dirty doesn’t matter” was not an easy task.  I mean, how do you go from having floors so clean that you’d be willing to eat off of them, to furniture that you have to think twice about sitting on.  We have BROWN furniture, how in the world do the kids manage to stain brown furniture?  It’s brown for goodness sakes, what type of chemicals are these kids handling?  Remember those Cheetos commercials?  The ones where someone is wearing a white shirt and a mean Cheetos eater wipes orange crumbs all on their back?  Well yeah, I think my house was the inspiration for those commercials; think white walls, with an orange Cheetos line leading from the kitchen to the living room.  Things like that used to bother me, but not anymore.  I’ve accepted defeat and have come to terms with the fact that our house will never sparkle again; at least until after the kids are gone off to college.

My transition was solidified yesterday during “Spill Fest 09”.  I don’t know what was going on yesterday, but the ENTIRE population of our house was in super messy mode.  Even Tank pitched in and left a present for me on the floor.  Ty was the least of my worries; all he spilled was a cup of ice.  Tre on the other hand went on a rampage!  He managed to throw food on the walls, grind a crayon into the floor, spill every liquid ever invented on the carpet, (including half a bottle of hot sauce) and each time, he would just continue on his day as if he had done no wrong.  Even after all that, I was still standing strong, but I wasn’t convinced that I no longer truly valued a squeaky clean environment.  I wasn’t convinced until the unthinkable happened that is; of all the spills and stains that occurred yesterday, who would of thought that the worst one would be produced by Fefe. 

She definitely took the cake for biggest mess last night.  It was like Tre was getting ready to except his award and Kanye just jumped on stage and said “Tre, I’m gonna let you finish, but Fefe had the worst spill of the decade!” (lol, sorry I had to do it)  What did she spill that was so bad you may ask?  Well, I’ll tell ya.  Fefe decided that it’d be a great idea to spill an ENTIRE glass of red wine on the couch and carpet.  She had literally just poured the glass and had yet to take a sip before it went tumbling to the ground.  I’m not talking about your typical 4-5oz glass of wine either; I’m talking a supersized glass filled to the top, 8 ounces.  So here I am, sitting in amazement at this huge red stain on our carpet that looked like we had just sacrificed a small goat in our living room, and I honestly did not care.  I wasn’t angry, wasn’t upset, and didn’t rush to get my favorite cleaning supply.  Nope, I just continued playing Madden and said: “don’t worry about it, shit happens”.  That’s huge, that is progression, my 12 step “Cleaners Anonymous” journey can now be marked as complete; give me my certificate!!!

I did do a little googling later and found that a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and dishwashing liquid does a wonderful job at getting out red wine stains.  So if you’ve just spilled red wine and don’t want any future visitors to think that your home is a previous murder scene, give that little concoction a try, it worked great for us.