Always runs… when these things happen, I try to remind myself: B”H they’re normal!!
That doesn’t make it easier on a day-to-day basis, though. The put-together moms probably have hours of help every week. (And don’t forget, if their kids are strapped into the stroller, they’re not dumping things on the kitchen floor, for the moment at least). My house… forget it.
When my kids were little, I had child-proof locks on all cabinets and window guards on the second floor windows (google Guardian Angel Window Guard). But that doesn’t mean they didn’t get into things.
Once a friend had something urgent and I took her two kids, my daughter’s age (2ish) and 4 months old. The 4 mo was fussy and I was trying to entertain her at the piano. Suddenly I realized the older girls were awfully quiet. They were quietly and happily sitting on the hardwood kitchen floor, smearing themselves, each other and the floor with Desitin. The hardwood floor had cracks that took a toothbrush to clean the Desitin out of. 🙂
Another time I was in the basement checking laundry. Suddenly I heard the thump-thump-thump-thump-thump of someone running from the kitchen to their room. Someone knew they were in trouble. I went up to the kitchen to find the eggs I had set out to make brownies, smashed on the (again, hardwood) floor. They look like balls, right? And when the first one doesn’t bounce, you’d want to see if the other one would, right?
Time to get out the tootbrush again…