Mommy CSI

This is the scene of the crime.   

What is the first thing you notice?  What's the next?  And...the last but probably the most alarming of all?

I often feel like I'm living a real-life "mommy-version" of CSI.  Constant occasions throughout the day where I turn around, a disastrous crime ensues out of my sight and I return to a scene that I must scour for clues and witnesses that simply won't talk. Sometimes the  criminal activity is easy to explain and easy to assume how the perpetrator arrived at the decision to commit said crime.  For example:

                                                                                   

No caption necessary right? (just in case it is necessary that's about 45 candy kisses unwrapped, though not all eaten as you can see by the stash to the right of the microwave, and my son crying over the fact that I caught him in the act). Others are truly a mystery.  In either case, there's always something more to it than the obvious mess and disruption. 

  

Today, obviously, the first thing I notice is the pile of pepper and Montreal Chicken Seasoning literally piled up on the stove-top, which, is the second thing I notice (the stove was NOT on).  There's a strawberry top in there and a ladle that he (by "he" I mean Declan, my 3 year old son whom I found fleeing the scene as I entered the kitchen) was clearly using to stir his little concoction....but wait...what is that up there in the corner of the photo?  The most alarming thing to any mommy looking at it.  Is that a cap to a now missing highlighter? Why, yes.  Yes it is.  (insert law and order theme music here):  The case of the missing highlighter.  

Stuff goes missing in this house all. of. the. time.  Twice now, the boys have been given the gift of an "assemble it yourself" airplane with a motorized hand drill that you use to drill bolts in to the airplane parts until you have it built.  The drill has gone missing both times.  We currently have no drill to assemble this toy.  It's not a small hand-drill.  And it's gone.  Our remotes are found inside of toyboxes, deep within seat cushions, in bathrooms and occasionally in the trash.  They steal our wallets, cell phones and car keys.  (Wow, maybe I'm raising a pack of future all-out bandits.  I should start paying attention to that).  Finding missing things has become a regular part of my weekly routine.  You'd think I'd be used to it by now but I'm not.  It causes undue stress and harmful distraction.  I have skipped meals to try and locate missing toys. (I have issues, I know this), but it seriously is one of those little things in motherhood that has come to drive me close to insane.  

Anyway, back to this morning's debacle:  Declan decided this morning that he wanted to make "chicken pot pie."  Or so this is what he tells me when I find the scene of the crime and ask him what happened. Confession made and talk about how 1) we don't play in the kitchen and 2) that's definitely not how you make chicken pot pie given, I find the highlighter cap.  My eyes widen as I snatch it off the countertop. "What is this?" I ask with alarm in my voice.  "Um, a mawker cap" he says.  "Where's the marker?" I ask, eyes still wide, concern growing.  "Um, I can't remember" and the suspect takes off in a giggling dash to somewhere else in the house. 

When the kids are little they are good at fessing up and telling you where they put things. "Declan, where did you put the remote?"  "Uhh, in the tub!" And, sure enough you'll go up to the bathroom and in the luckily empty tub will be your t.v. remote.  But right around 3 they must decide that it's entertaining to watch mom stew and boil all day over the "missing something" that refuses to resurface.    

Immediately I start looking for evidence.  There is no highlighter on the walls or on his skin.  The younger child doesn't have any on his skin. I walk around the house holding the orange cap looking for the bright orange permanent ink filled marker that fits inside.   It hasn't been fed to the dog or flushed down a toilet.  I spend at least 25 minutes doing this, every now and then asking for help and receiving none.  Eventually, I've learned, that I have to give up on these types of things.  I cannot spend all day looking for this marker!  But it's killing me that an uncapped marker is running free in my home with 3 year old and 18 month old boys in it!  

Still, as I sit here 6 hours after the incident, I have not located this marker.  And the reality that I may never find it is settling in.  And I'm thinking back on my "stacked momma" photo.  The missing marker produces anxiety in me.  Partly because I picture waking in the night to horror music, blacklights and a room covered in highlighter and partly because it means yet another piece of my organized home has gone missing.  It represents the never-ending nature of the "trying to put things together" piece of my job. I'm a list-maker and a task-checker-off-er and as I head into the kitchen to start a crock-pot meal for dinner I am interrupted by Declan's attempt at Strawberry/Pepper/Montreal Seasoning Chicken Pot Pie and a missing, uncapped, orange highlighter!  It's the feeling that the flow of every day will undoubtedly be interrupted at some point.  And that is something I'm still working on getting used to. 

I still trick myself after a few days of nice, easy flow and task completion, that this will be the way it is....for like, EVER!  And then something happens which alters my schedule, day, mood, priorities and I have to re-set and go again.  Sometimes, it's minor, like today.  Half an hour of time spent on vacuuming up seasonings and trying to find a highlighter doesn't throw your day off all that badly.  Sometimes, things do.  Like when they crap their pants in the driveway as you're getting packed up for a Dr.'s appt you're already running late for.  Or they get sick and you have to cancel, TWICE, the pre-school visit you scheduled a week ago and are desperate to go on because there are only three slots left!  Or when they dump a cup of coffee all OVER your computer and office desk.  The desk and computer that you moved into your living room next to your pellet stove so that they could have a bedroom!  It's hard sometimes, when you're hyper-focused on meeting needs and keeping routines, to remember that they don't do things on purpose to sabotage you.  Even when they're doing something on purpose!  It's not to make you angry or hurt you or purposefully stress you out.  They're curious.  They're testing boundaries and experimenting with a world they're only a couple of years familiar with. And, honestly, I am too.

The world feels completely new and different with them in my life.  With them being my primary focus and me, being my last.  So we're figuring this out together.  What's worth stressing over, what's not. Appreciating a day that flows and dismissing the moments that interrupt that flow.  And, maybe, when I'm ready to head back to work and I'm missing these days and stressing about how to put into words what it is I've done all these years for a resume or a cover letter I'll remember to list Crime Scene Investigator.  That will surely be a disappointing conversation for my potential future employers when they realize I'm talking missing markers and dead houseplants.  Ok, maybe I'll leave it off of the formal resume.  But I'll keep it tucked away in the one I keep in my head.  The one that actually makes me feel valid, valued and fulfilled.

Share your mommy CSI stories and photos in the comments below!  Always, thanks for reading <3

-K