The Mess Makers

Do you know how difficult it is to clean honey out of wicker?

I unfortunately know the answer to this--and the answer is "impossible"--because of the mess my beasties made yesterday. (Side note- I have no idea how a free weight got mixed into the scene. I haven't used those since 2009.)

I'm beginning to wonder if my children drink. Life was challenging enough when I only had Bobby's antics to thwart, but the shenanigans have reached a whole new level of nut-case now that Vivi is also a toddler. I can handle the whining; I can handle the tantrums; I can even handle the general assholery that goes along with toddlerhood. What I cannot handle are the sheer number of messes I am faced with daily. 

I'm a chick who enjoys a clean home. I like a made bed, things put away, clean counters, and clean floors. I don't even mind doing these household chores. I really don't. But what I do mind is doing them multiple times a day completely in vain.  My home is never clean now. But here's the thing- I clean more than I ever have in my life. I vacuum at least once a day (often more). Our vacuum cleaner is actually never put away; I literally keep the thing in a corner of the kitchen because I have to use it so frequently. I'm semi-concerned that my children may think it's our family pet. So the issue isn't that I am a lazy housekeeper.

The issue is that I live with tiny drunk terrorists.

Hammered.

I'm beginning to notice that 75% of their infractions are food-related, which I find interesting since they rarely eat what I prepare at meal times. But shit gets real between meals.

Yeah, those are still frozen.

Let's use this week as an example. Monday night I broiled a delicious sockeye salmon that Alex caught when he was in Alaska. Yes, these is the kind of salmon that sells for $20/lb in the grocery store, and ours was fresh-caught, so it was a stellar dinner presentation. So of course my kids wouldn't touch it. Bobby literally refused to look at it. Sadly for them, I am not a mother who caters to picky eaters, so I told them that was what was for dinner--take it or leave it. They left it (but did nibble on some fruit) and went to bed afterward. I figured that at least they would be hungry in the morning and eat a good breakfast. I made pancakes, anticipating them to inhale them. Vivi gobbled the pancakes down, but Bobby wouldn't touch them. Alright then, fine. That's what we have for breakfast--take it or leave it. He left it. 

I ran upstairs to put on my gym clothes and get myself ready for the day, leaving the kiddos playing in their toy kitchen for just a couple of minutes. Mid-way through brushing my teeth, I noticed that their shrieks of laughter had grown quiet; this is never a good thing. I rushed downstairs to find both kids covered in Wild Alaska Blueberry Honey. And when I say "covered," I mean from scalp to toenails. Honey was everywhere. It was all over the countertops, on the wicker barstool, dripping onto the floor, all over their clothes, and then they had taken their sticky little hands to all of the windows and my favorite throw blanket. Not only was this honey (which has got to be the most annoying thing to clean up, right behind chewing gum), but this was a purple colored blueberry honey. So it was even worse. I stood there dumbfounded for a second wondering how Bobby even got the honey, because I had it sitting deep back on our kitchen counter, and then I saw the chair that the little booger had pulled over to use as a stool. Which also had honey all over it.

I honestly wasn't even that mad because the whole scenario was just so preposterous. HOW? How did this happen? Why does this always have to happen? Because believe me, this kind of stuff happens a LOT. Bobby is in this phase where he no longer will eat what I prepare for meals, so he sneaks food. He climbs on counters, gets into the pantry, and--what I loathe the most--opens up the freezer to eat frozen food while it's still frozen. Literally a good 40% of my day revolves around keeping that kid off the counters and out of the freezer. I already tried tying the freezer up, but that just spurred him on even more.

Another huge chunk of my time goes into cleaning up messes that my kids have dumped on the ground. It could be a box of cereal, a bag of popcorn, or a basket of toys. I feel like I never stop hearing a small crashing sound in the back of my head.

Yes, he's actually eating Lucky Charms on the floor with pugs.

And then there's Vivi's affinity for styrofoam.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong here. I do my best to keep my eyes on them, but there are two of them and only one set of eyes for me to use. While I'm cleaning up one mess, they're off making two more. I don't know how they go so fast. I already strip them naked nearly every time they eat, because otherwise it looks something like this:

So my question is how am I supposed to combat this? Am I suppposed to padlock my freezer? Am I supposed to remove all of the chairs and stools in our house? Am I supposed to live a honey-free life? Because that's not a life worth living. 

Help.