A couple weeks ago, Sophie’s room was a mess. (Actually, Sophie’s room always seems to be a mess as of late but I’m talking about one particular day in which it was a mess, a couple weeks ago.) I had to shower. So I asked her to clean her room while I showered.
Halfway through my shower she came into the bathroom (little people coming into the bathroom while I shower is perfectly normal to me now), climbed up on the stool and filled a plastic spray bottle with water. I remembered seeing that spray bottle already full, only five minutes before.
I stuck my head outside the plastic shower curtain, soap still in my hair.
“Sophie, what are you doing?” I asked.
“Cleaning my room,” she said.
“Why do you need water in a spray bottle to clean your room? And what happened to all the water that was in the spray bottle before?” I asked.
“I told you! I’m cleaning my room!” she said.
I really wanted to finish my shower. I hate having to grab a towel, get out, figure out why someone is crying/yelling/not making any noise mid-shower. I hate that water gets everywhere when I do that, I hate how shampoo drips in my eyes when I do that and I hate feeling hot and then cold and then hot again when I do that.
So I (foolishly) ignored the situation.
When I was done with my shower and properly dried off, I walked into Sophie’s room. I felt my bare feet squish into carpet soaked with water. Nothing had been picked up. And sprigs of dried lavender were scattered all over the floor.
“Why is the carpet wet?” I asked (clearly she had sprayed every inch of it with her spray bottle, but I wanted to know why). “And why is there lavender everywhere? And why haven’t you cleaned at all?”
“I have been cleaning!” she said. “The whole time! I cleaned the carpet with my spray bottle. And spread lavender everywhere to make it smell good. That’s cleaning.”
I thought of all my lavender-scented cleaning products, and how she loves to sniff them when I’m using them. I sighed. The carpet eventually dried. I helped her pick up her toys. And I’m still, occasionally, finding little sprigs for lavender in her room.
“Love is the thing that enables a woman to sing while she mops up the floor after her husband has walked across it in his barn boots.” —Hoosier Farmer
