I Drown. I Drown in the Clutter.

I know I've mentioned this before, but my house will. Not. Stay. Clean. It was spic and span last night and by 10 am today...goodbye carpet! Nice seeing you while it lasted! So long, countertops! May we meet again someday! Both of my children have made it their mission to throw every conceivable thing they come across onto the floor. Hey, it's nice to have purpose in your life.

Here are some things I've picked up off my floor in the last couple days:

• A pot holder with a yellow plastic triangle stuck in it
• An empty prescription bottle from 2005
• A can of enchilada sauce
• One of Tate's shoes, from the pair of shoes I bought him recently that he refuses to wear. He seems to think they will cause his feet to catch fire or something. The other shoe was on the windowsill. I think it was trying to escape.
• One of Spencer's toenails. Yes, gross. At least Nora didn't eat it.
• 3000 magazines shredded into 39646903450000 pieces by Nora the Paper Eater. She seems to really enjoy purusing the lasting hoochie antics of Paris Hilton in my People magazines. Perusing, then eating.
• A miniature plastic A&W mugh with a french fry and AA battery in it
• A Christmas card
• A paper plate from Tate's 1st birthday party in 2007

I don't know where it comes from. Well, some of it probably comes from Nora's forays into random kitchen and laundry room drawers. She's very proud of her newfound talent of opening drawers and chucking everything in them to their death on the floor. She's merciless. Many a plastic cup has met it's doom being hurled from her little paw. Gravity rocks, if you ask her.

So I push forward, through the hodgepodge of random artifacts from our life strewn about my house. One of these days I'm certain I'll find a $100 bill on my floor. I have no idea where it would come from, but I've found stranger things floating around my house. It could happen.

I asked Tate to help me pick up today and he said "No, Mommy. I don't do that kind of thing. I don't think so." Ah. Well, good to know for next time. He's been a stinker of epic proportions lately, and it's actually been wearing on me quite a bit. I won't get into details because I just don't feel like it, but I will just say this. It's amazing how crappy I feel due to judgemental people. I don't appreciate it, and I hate that I let other people make me feel like I'm doing something wrong as a mother, but there you go. I let it affect me way too much. One of these days I'll just punch someone in the face the next time they give me or my two year old child a dirty look. They'd be in a crapload of pain, but probably not surprised. I seem like the type of person to do that, I'm sure.

So next time you see a screaming, tornadic blur of a little boy running around wreaking havoc and a stressed-out, frantic mother chasing him around trying to get him to stop hitting or pinching or pushing over racks in a department store or licking the conveyer belt at the grocery store or whatever, think before you give a nasty look. I've got a mean left hook.