Bad habits never die...

...they just get passed on to your kids.

Taylor and both of our kids naturally hold their hands this way. It's how we know they are his---and because they are practically little Taylor clones in every other way.

It's funny how much of us are in our kids. Kyle and I have identical tastes in food: we like mustard, spicy things, and chunky sauces. We will basically eat anything put in front of us, and we will do basically anything for chocolate---even for just one single chocolate chip. Taylor and Claire are anti-mustard, anti-spicy, anti-sauce, and take-it-or-leave-it when it comes to chocolate. Although Taylor has branched out as an adult (still no mustard or tomatoes or anything with a "funny texture"), it is reported that Toddler-Taylor liked everything "naked" from hamburgers to noodles to mashed potatoes. Claire has picked this up without encouragement or previous knowledge---not even ketchup on a hamburger, nor spaghetti or alfredo sauce on pasta, and no gravy on potatoes!

It goes the other way too: Claire has my eyes. Kyle has Taylor's. Both of their hands rest in the same odd position that Taylor's do. They're both super-smart---just like us. Just kidding---because only Claire shows signs of being super smart so far :) Anyway, it's interesting to see parts of yourself in your children. One disheartening thing I've noticed is that Claire has nearly every single one of my bad qualities.

Take for instance the other day:  The kids and I set out to clean up Claire's room. If you have ever seen her room, you know the monstrous undertaking this can be. It had probably been three weeks since any adult had made much of an effort to do more than hang up her laundry.

Claire's closet on a typical day.

So there we were; I was giving the orders, and the kids were supposed to be following the orders:

Me: Kyle, please throw that away. (And he leaves to do it)
Me: Claire, please put your pajamas in their drawer (She walks in the general direction of the pajama drawer but gets distracted by a doll. Kyle returns.)
Me: Kyle, please go hang this up. (Kyle heads to closet)
Me: Claire, remember how I said put up the pajamas? Put them up! (Kyle returns)
Me: Kyle, can you go throw this away now? (Kyle leaves.)
Me (annoyed): Claire, put your pajamas in the drawer or they will go in the garbage.
Claire: Well...it would be easier that way.

It went on that way for 2 hours. I think she accomplished maybe five things I asked her to do---in the end both of us got so frustrated that we quit when it was 90% done. She spent the next hour cleaning up (AKA playing with) her dollhouse. She gets it from me. Lucky girl.

I'm an awful housekeeper. I'm lousy at it. Nothing about tidying up a house comes naturally for me. At all. Never has. Probably never will. I know for a fact that since last August our entire house (every room, every bathroom, every surface) has been completely clean at the same time exactly two times. Two times in eight months! I have good runs and small victories. On Wednesdays the entire downstairs (minus the toy room) is clean because I teach piano lessons. On Mondays our bedrooms are pretty good because that's laundry day and it's easier to vacuum without clothes all over the floor! But on every other day of the week it's up in the air. Each day it seems that I wrangle something: the bathrooms, the kitchen (most days my kitchen has moments of being almost clean), my closet, the dreaded toy room, the loft. But if I do more than that it means I'll ignore my kids, and they are completely destructive to whatever part of the house I am not currently arranging.

I need to clarify that I don't need you to call the Hoarders show on me. Or the health department. Or even Merry Maids (well, maybe them if you're willing to pay...) We are neither pest nor mold infested. It's just the clutter that's the problem for me. It's mostly kid clutter, but I'll admit to being guilty for a part of it too. At least I must be the other responsible party, because Taylor is so seldom here.

And I try. I really do. But I'm not effective. This is evidenced by Claire's comments to me the other day: "Mom? Do you think I'll be a good mom?" I assured her she'd be great, and she responded, "Well, I'm just worried about it because all you do all day is clean---and I hate cleaning!" Clearly if I do it all day, and we're still not clutter-free, we do have a problem.

I think I improve by about 2.5% every year. So by the time I'm about 80 I think I'll have this down. In the meantime it kills me to see that this quality has been passed on to her. I'm pretty sure it's on the Nature side of the Nature vs Nurture argument, because my mom was great at this, she certainly tried to teach me. Repetitively and continuously :)

Claire has some other bad qualities of mine. I can already tell she's a "hair nerd" like me and my mother before me. It took me until probably last year until I didn't feel alone when I am in a group. I see that in her and it breaks my heart. Our moods are pretty up and down which might explain why we both love Elvis Costello's song "She;"  the lyrics describe us perfectly:

 She may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day

I do have good qualities I hope that she gains. She's a natural at the piano, so she's got that one down. Claire sings in public without fear and already really enjoys public speaking (just like me, but not the singing part). It's interesting that we all have different abilities though. This morning my friend Katie (who happened to be Miss America and coincidentally is good at singing) blogged about how she's not good at cooking. And you know what, I'm a great cook (probably Katie's house is always clean!). I love to cook, and I can even add, subtract, or substitute ingredients at will without things going horribly wrong. And I do it on a very, very frugal budget spending usually $200 a month and always less than $300 a month for our family of four. I'm also great at staying on top of laundry (with Taylor's help). I wouldn't consider it a forte of mine, but it certainly doesn't stress me out like it seems to stress a lot of people. I never have the proverbial mountain of laundry, so I must be doing something right.

Whenever I get down on myself about my complete lack of tidy skills (which is nearly every day) I have to remind myself about the things I can do: the cooking, the laundry, the sewing, piano, scrapbooking, and hopefully I can add blogging to that list. I can do some things! And I hope that one day Claire will be able to say that about herself---and about me! After all, going back to Costello's song, if you can get over the part of us that brings the autumn chill, the summer song part is pretty awesome. With Claire (and I hope with me) the end of the song rings ever true:

Me. I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is She. 

And for fun here's a link to that song, along with the clip from Notting Hill that made me love it so much: