Vacuuming

The hour before a party is prime time vacuuming time at our house.

Seeing Ed vacuum is a rare sight…look at Emmy watch at her daddy!
Do you think Ed had a Tom Sawyer scheme going?

Look at Emmy go! She’s a blur!

This lasted for about two minutes, then the vacuum got a little too heavy for Miss Emmy. 
Ed resumed his cleaning duties. (Unlike Tom Sawyer!)
And then…people came over, ate and drank, Lily tore wrapping paper off of birthday presents, pizza and brownie ice-cream cake was consumed, and our house was turned into a wreck!
Seriously, why do we clean before parties?

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Messes Make Memories

While when they happen messes are not something you laugh at, messes do tend to stay in your memory. I still remember the time I spilled a whole container of hot homemade potato soup all over my kitchen floor. As I was cleaning up the sticky, starchy mess, I was far from laughing. In fact, I may have said some words that were not particularly laughable.

Given time, stories about messes do bring about laughter. One Thanksgiving, my mom tripped while carrying a bowl of corn. The corn flew up into the air, up on the ceiling, and fell all over the floor! We joke that there is still corn stuck to that kitchen ceiling. It is a wonderful memory of my mom that we tell again and again. I’m pretty sure, however, that it was a while before Mom could laugh at herself over spilling all that corn!

Some of the more messy messes are made by the little ones in our lives. A baby just learning how to eat solid food (which really isn’t all that solid–mashed banana, for instance) seems to get more banana on her clothes, the high chair, and the floor than actually in her mouth! I never realized how much banana stains clothes until I had a baby.

The most fun messes are the planned messes; the messes that come with a special event such as a birthday. For Lily’s second birthday, she wanted a “doggy” themed birthday party. I melted some chocolate to make some bone shapes for her cake, and I let Lily lick the spoon.

Now that’s a spoon!

Lily really enjoyed making that chocolatey mess, and I enjoyed watching her make it!
Doggy bone birthday cake!

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I received information about Clorox’s Bleach It Away campaign and am sharing my messy moment for the chance to win prizes from The SITS Girls. To learn more about the messy moment program, check out www.BleachItAway.com. Sharing your story on the Clorox fan page gets you entered for the chance to win $25,000 and daily prizes, and you can grab a coupon for Clorox® Regular Bleach.