For a time, after having children, the only time I was
thoroughly clean, was on my way from the shower to the bathroom
door.
For a time, after having children, the only time I was thoroughly clean, was on my way from the shower to the bathroom door. In spite of taking numerous precautions, I always ended up with whatever my kids ate, touched or sneezed, stuck somewhere on my body or my wardrobe. Things have greatly improved, of course, with my kids approaching and entering the teenage years, but not as much as you’d think. I can’t complain much about my daughter any more, but my son can be messier than I am, tracking in enough mud that I’ve considered at times, moving us all out to the back yard, where it’s cleaner.
My wardrobe in the closet pretty much tells the whole story because I never throw anything away. Jammed in the very back, I can see how that after my daughter was born, I exchanged my silk designer clothes for washable cottons. Then when my daughter turned 2, I exchanged solid colors for prints, which disguised the grape jelly she used to accidentally smear on me. After the birth of my son, I considered not wearing anything at all and wrapping myself in a roll of paper towels.
Each day my outfit becomes a road map of our daily events. If my husband wanted to know about my day, I just held out my sleeve and point like a soldier reporting from battle.
“We ate scrambled eggs for breakfast, finger-painted and went to the park where the Frisbee got stuck in a mud puddle the size of the LaBrea Tar Pit,” I would say, gazing enviously at his starched white shirt.
I’m cleaner now, but no less disheveled. My friend Shirley dropped by a couple months ago, took one look at me and said: “Your kids woke up really late for school, and so did you, and that’s why you’re wearing a baseball cap – you didn’t have a chance to wash your hair. You have one shoe on because you were too rushed to find it …”
“Actually, I tripped over the dog, as we were sprinting to the car, but close enough,” I answered.
“And your blue blouse has red splotches on it because your daughter left her lipstick in her jeans again.”
Wow, she’s good.
I used to wonder if my children saw me as a real person or as a large, portable towel with feet. Now, I just cringe when they look at old photos of me and ask if that’s one of our relatives. I used to be impeccably dressed for work each morning. I never used my jacket for home plate, for instance, and my clothes were the same color in the evening as they were in the morning. Still, things are definitely an improvement of when I spent my day in primary-colored trenches with two preschoolers armed with crayons, ink pens and Silly Putty. When I realized I was spending more time with the washing machine than with my husband, I gave up trying to stay clean and began to think of my clothing as a convenient alternative to cameras and video recorders.
Embedded halfway in the closet are several clothes that represent a three-day trip to Disneyland. Another bleached shirt brings back the memories of the Grand Canyon where my son spit up three bottles of apple juice, and my daughter got a bloody nose while winding down a trail the width of a rubber band. Trust me, using your closet as something of a photo album is a unique way of preserving memories. But it may take your friends and family some time to get used to the idea, as I keep discovering whenever I return from a vacation. Invariably, someone will ask me about our trip and how it went.
“I’ll show you,” I say brightly. “Come on up to the bedroom closet.”
And they always give me the oddest look. Go figure.
