Hmmmmm

I always assumed that when I became a proper adult – y’know, with a house, car, pet, husband, child – I’d become a tidy person. I assumed not only that I would stop thinking it was acceptable to leave the day’s clothes on the floor, but that I’d also stop doing it. I assumed that my house would be clean all the time, not just when people were visiting, and that I would not leave dishes in the sink or allow clutter to mount and accumulate. I assumed I would water my plants and that they would not die.

And there have been incremental changes. If you compare now to 10 years ago, I’m definitely tidier. There was a time I stored my passport in my laundry basket (‘stored is a loose term, more like it fell in there and I knew it was there but didn’t remove it) and when dishes were only done when there literally were no dishes left to use and all the dirty dishes were balanced so precariously on top of each other they threatened to crash to the floor. These things don’t happen anymore. But my bedroom still looks like we’ve recently been burgled; post still piles up and anytime we travel the suitcases remains unpacked for a good 2 months or more. My plants just about survive, but I tend to bring them to the very edge of death on a regular basis.

But here I am – married with a house and a cat and a car (let’s not talk about the state of my car…) and about to bring a baby into the mix. Yet those magical shifts in personality and habit don’t seem to have happened. All those tidy houses I visited as a child, with made beds and folded clothes (that were then put in drawers and the drawers were then closed) and done dishes – how does that happen? I’m clinging to the hope that the magic is in the baby and that his presence will have some sort of transformative effect. Yet even as I type it, I know that that’s ludicrous.

And we’ve decided to do cloth diapers…