Lint & S*#%

June Cleaver managed to have a spotless house, polite children and an impeccable wardrobe.
Claire Huxtable was a brilliant lawyer with a houseful of good kids and a hilarious husband.
Jill Taylor held her own even with a zany, tool obsessed husband.
Granted, those are t.v. moms with t.v. set homes kept up by t.v. prop masters.
It's all fake. No one can possibly be that put together all the time. Impossible.

Those same words echoed through my hastily ponytailed head as I leaned against the wall, waiting to pick my daughter up from gymnastics. I had just set my toddler down in time out for an attempted bludgeoning of another child with their Scooby Doo Thelma action figure. I was trying to remember if the sweatshirt I had on was the same one I wore yesterday when the June/Claire/Jill mom sashayed into the foyer. Uber-trendy, knee length bubble trench, knee high black boots. Make up that looked like it was freshly applied, as opposed to what didn't rub off during the night because she was too tired to wash her face. Very cute, very hip mom haircut.
All I could think about was there had to be a spot in her (most likely) spotless home that was disheveled. Perhaps a linen closet with a toppling tower of Egyptian cotton towels. Maybe there is a sticky mystery spill in the back of her stainless steel sub zero? As her Escalade passed by me in the parking lot, I had to remind myself that, at least, my car was freshly detailed. Well, if vacuuming snack crumbs with the shop vac counts as detailed (hey, beggars can't be choosers!)

Later that evening, as I was cleaning up our dinner from a to go sack (I'm telling you, the mother of the year committee WON'T stop calling me) I was figuring there was a very good chance that uber-mom in the Posh Spice Trench was cleaning up take out tonight too.
So even as I fantasize about my closets looking like the aisles of Linen 'n Things, my reality is staring me right in the face. I take out the half full trash with the Def Con 4 diaper in it, and in order to make it worth the trip, I empty the bathroom and laundry room trash into it only to have the laundry room trash spill out over the top, causing an avalanche of dryer lint.
Well, at least the lint smells of lavender or cool breezes or whatever box was on sale and that is lowering the Def Con level of the diaper odor.

My life is messy, it's crazy and it's very, very real. It may be more "Lint and S*#%" than Linens 'n Things, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, okay, a few Hollywood prop masters in the house wouldn't hurt.