Celebrating a Decade of Messes with Love

This post is sponsored by Clorox—helping you find the joy in making a mess.

Valentine’s Day is coming up and so is my 11- year anniversary with my husband. When we began dating our freshman year in college, all I saw were beautiful bubbly hearts in my future and happy times ahead. I had my head on straight and knew life would always be full of ups and downs, but I just couldn’t quite imagine the hideous messes we would encounter over a decade of marriage. In fact, at those heart stopping moments during “OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED?” messes, I’ve learned after 10 years to just sit there and laugh!

It all started in our first year of marriage when we were struggling to make ends meet. After what felt like months of eating rice and beans we splurged on a cheap frozen pizza, which met it’s untimely death when it accidentally slid ALL the way down the back end of the oven. I’m talking pepperoni burnt to the edges of the oven, cheese covering the oven burners… That cheese just hanging and swinging off of the oven racks should have given me my first warning of the messes to come. Fast forward several years when baby #1 came happily bouncing along and we quickly learned the joys and cringe-worthy moments of raising a little baby boy. The first week at 3AM while changing his diaper we should have known we were in trouble when he peed straight up the wall (I swear he hit the ceiling!), which of course dribbled all the way down behind the changing table and soaked into the carpet.

Fast forward past the handfuls of bugs eaten, piles of dirt chewed on, charcoal gnawed on, food thrown across the room and any other plethora of messes you would like to pile onto my first son and here comes along baby #2! We couldn’t have been more excited! But through that excitement, as time passed, we were quickly reminded of the insane messes our first son made. The most bothersome one I remember was when he locked himself in the bathroom and sprayed shaving gel up our textured wall and all over our popcorn ceiling. Every time we tried to wipe it off it would foam up—only comical many years later! I wonder if baby #2 was coached by his big brother!

Now that we’ve had baby #3, we are bracing ourselves yet again for the mess. Not just the baby puke and poop – that comes with the territory., I’m talking about the mischievous trying-to-drive-my-parents-insane kind of mess. Although I secretly hope our little girl will be an OCD housekeeper and be allergic to mess making! (I can dream right?!) Whether it’s the forceful flow of puke splattering across every bathroom wall you own (yep, that’s happened, too!) or the paint so sweetly smeared into the table as your child proudly shows off his new artwork, – it’s just simply amazing how messy, yet beautiful, kids can be. While we haven’t figured out a way to stop messes from happening entirely in our decade of marriage, we have found a way to clean them up. Clorox® Regular-Bleach has helped us get the ick out of baby clothes, saving us from permanent stains. And thanks heavens Clorox disinfects 99.99% of germs and bacteria because I can guarantee you my kids have shared and spread millions of germs since their lives began. Through all the messes we’ve encountered, (and have yet to encounter), over the past 10 years and beyond, remember that these messes are only temporary but the beautiful and laughable memories will remain for the rest of your life!

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