​Motherhood Monthly: Verbal Snapshots of the Dropping of the Ball That Happens When You're Responsible for a Tiny Human

{Images above: the adorable little reason for the following...}
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Last week, I did laundry on Monday. I carried the basket of clean clothes upstairs in between things and dumped it out on the bed so I could fold it later. At bedtime, I went upstairs and found our bed covered with clean clothes. So I scooped them up and put them all back in the basket, put the basket on the floor, and got into bed.

The next day after hastily pulling the comforter over the bed to make a "clean" flat surface, I dumped all of the clothes back on the bed to be folded. That night, when I went to get into bed, I once again scooped up the unfolded clothes and shoved them back into the basket.

You would think I would learn, but this happened on Wednesday, too. 

I finally folded the clothes on Thursday. 

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In late December, I ran out of contact lenses. The first appointment I could get that would be covered by my insurance was in early March, so I decided I would go without contacts until March and then get new ones.

When the day of my March appointment rolled around, we had a huge snowstorm and the Eye Doctor's office called to tell me that they were closed and would call me back to reschedule after the storm. I missed their follow-up call the next week and still haven't called them back to reschedule.

I've been without contacts for over 7 months.

The other day I looked out the window at the fuzzy leaves on the tree across the street and remembered my missed appointment and the fact that I used to wear contacts.

Then I thought, hmmmm...maybe I don't need contacts, after all!?

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A few months ago, Charlie Mae was having a blast sitting in the driver's seat of my car, pushing all of the buttons on the dashboard (as you do). The next time that I turned my car on, I found that the radio settings had somehow been changed so that sound only comes out of the back speakers.

I have no idea how to fix this and no time to look up how to fix it so for weeks now, when driving around, I have to decide if I want to listen to music that is just a tiny buzzing from the backseat or drive in silence.

I mostly drive in silence [for longer rides I put on my headphones and listen to a podcast. Duh.] 

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The debris in our garage--the Elephant Graveyard of our household for the past two years--has been building and building. This past weekend I finally couldn't take it anymore so I started cleaning it out with about 15 minutes until the lunchtime/naptime routine and while in charge of Charlie Mae (not my most productive time of the day).

We don't really drink beer around here, so every time we've hosted a cookout and had leftover beer, we've stowed the unused cans in the garage, leaving us with a garage floor littered with little clusters of half-used 12-packs (again, #ElephantGraveyard).

As a part of my quick cleaning job, I decided to start rounding up the beers, stacking them all up on a shelf. When Charlie Mae saw what I was doing she was overjoyed to see a job she could help me with.

One by one she would bring me a dirty, spiderweb and who-know-what-else-covered beer can and say, "'Nother seltzer mommy???"

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During a snowstorm in February or March, the rubber padding on my back windshield wiper came off, rendering my back windshield wiper unusable. I've been without a back windshield wiper ever since. 

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It's really easy to let the burden of all of these little things (and there are OH SO MANY more where these come from) get me down. But every time that my mind starts to go down the "undone" rabbithole (which I've talked about here before), I just have to remind myself that I am raising a special little human being right now; that every unfixed windshield wiper, dusty garage floor "seltzer," and silent car ride is worth it.

Charlie Mae won't remember whether or not the clothes went unfolded for a week or whether or not I could see with my eyes (HAHAHA), but she will remember the quality time we spent together dancing to Hokey Pokey in the kitchen (actually, she probably won't remember that because she's so young but you understand the sentiment). 

And as annoying as all of these undone tasks are, in a weird way, they're also a reminder that my priorities are in the right place right now. And that we're not "failing at life," as Ben keeps saying when he remembers something we've let fall through the cracks (Ben...), but that we're doing our very best and that's all we can do.

At least that's what I keep telling myself. Over and over again. 

But I should probably get my eyes checked and contacts reordered, huh?