The Truth About Mom

Dear R,

Your dad's away on a business trip right now, I just ate an egg sandwich for dinner, there are books and blocks strewn all over the floor...and I'm in heaven. I don't know how I'll be as you get a bit older and I have to start setting a good example, but for now, your mom is a genuine slob.

It distresses your father to come home to a messy house, so, after you're in your crib for the night, I usually try to undo the wreckage throughout the apartment dealt by your wee hands. You seem to have an affinity for chaos (which your dad has somehow decided is all my fault): Your first task of the morning is always to head straight for the coffee table and drag out all the magazines (which your dad has been begging me to throw out--but who am I to remove the bedraggled pile of parenting magazines that bring you such obvious delight?). When set on the floor before a jumbled heap of laundry on your right and a stack of folded clothes on your left, you'll invariably head left. And if anything is sitting on a low shelf, you cannot rest until every last object is whacked to the ground.

But here I am, sitting in our exploded living room, blissfully choosing *not* to clear up. Ahhh. Of course, before dad comes home, there will be some seriously frantic housecleaning done by me. But not today.