Life's a Mess

Dear friends, here we are near the end of February with spring only a month away. Right now I feel very much like a bear, hibernating in her cave. So very close to the earth reawakening and filling up with new life and yet still very much a barren winter landscape. It makes me not want to do anything, just stop awhile til it's time to exhale again.
We had snow on Sunday! I was totally unprepared for that and if you will recallI had already written it down in blog form (which is very much like stone, no?) that it absolutely would not happen this winter. So, there we were, Tait, the girls and I, out for the afternoon having lunch, buying groceries and picking out carpet for the girls' room and here it comes!It was lovely. Didn't last too awfully long, just long enough too cover the ground pretty well and send the girls off to bed with visions of snowflakes dancing through their heads. It melted away fairly quickly the next day, giving the girls just enough time to go out in it, stomp around a bit and come back in declaring it too cold and wet.

I thought you might want a look at my dirty house today. No, really, I was in the middle of pulling things out from under the girls' beds... yarn, toys, beeswax, orange peels, socks, and decided instead of getting aggravated I would grab the camera and see these wonderful, childish messes from another angle.

Much loved books that are taken to bed every night, animals, handmade books...

Crayons, coloring books and bits of paper all over and under the dining table. I couldn't bear to show you under the table, I shudder to think of it!

This one must climb!

Baby dolls abandoned in the middle of the floor. What a mess they make! I go through the house all of the day, every day, picking up after them. I frequently begrudge it. I frequently tell Tait, when he comes home from work, that all I've gotten accomplished all day was cleaning one mess after another of theirs. Getting them to help me clean is mostly a battle. A battle that I don't want to fight. Rebecca, of Bending Birches, wrote just the other day about this. It has been on my mind and so her post really resonated with me. Modeling and imitation.. this really is the key to so much of child rearing, isn't it? I am trying to be very mindful of the attitude that I bring to my work, remember that three sets of small eyes are always watching. One day they will be ready to make the decision on their own about keeping their space, they will get there. But I want them to get there without the battles and frustration, instead at their own pace (which may very well be when they move out and have to clean their own home).
I have to admit that it feels like home to see their childish things about.

Do you have any tried and true and gentle and respectful way to deal with children's messes?