Evidence

If you had come to our house today, it would probably have been a giant mess. I wouldn't have apologized.

I just spent the last two hours cleaning (almost) everything that was out of place, and even with a two-year-old spilling the toy box as quickly as I filled it, I noticed something sweet. I realized the mess in my house wasn't a sign of laziness. It was evidence of a life being lived.

Dinner was still out because I'd left the table in a hurry to pick up with Lyla where Ryan left off—somewhere between a fort and a coloring book. The "fort" was really just a Pack 'n' Play on its side with a sorry little quilt laying beside it—a temporary shelter destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Lyla.

I couldn't turn on the lights in the office because I'd blown a fuse while sewing, heating the iron and running a space heater at the same time. Scraps of fabric and the final touches of our family's Christmas stockings are waiting for me in the dark.

There's a copy of Writer's Market 2013 on the end table, next to the copy of the Ensign that Ryan was reading and I should have been. There's a phone on the countertop, out of battery and abandoned in favor of Ryan's new iPhone that arrived today. (Merry Christmas!)

I picked up the game of Memory and it was missing two pieces. It's being loved to death. I went to put away The Book of Mormon for Latter-day Saint Families—which we try to always keep out in the open—and found one piece. Only one remains to be found, perhaps in the bushes of our Christmas tree or under a copy of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus somewhere.

The bed was unmade because Ryan and I both woke up with such fervor to capitalize on the morning hours while both girls slept that we couldn't be bothered with straightening the covers. There's a copy of Edenbrooke on my nightstand, which always makes me think of the friend who gave it to me.

The floor was littered with toys. Lyla loves 'em and leaves 'em, that fickle little girl. At one point my own living, breathing little doll lay on the floor next to the toys for no reason at all except that she was happy there.

I found a sweatshirt on the couch that was left behind after this weekend's ice storm that left us homebound and freezing. I found an empty box of wipes that I'd strategically placed around the house earlier in the day. Heaven help me, I even found a used diaper in one corner (just a wet one. And can you believe I'm saying "just a wet one"?).

There's a giant pile of clean laundry waiting to be folded—laundry that took longer than it could have because of a cute set of two-year-old hands that insist on helping. I love it when they help.

It was a beautiful little mess. But I cleaned it up, putting everything where it belonged, because neatness has its own kind of beauty. We need a clean slate for tomorrow.

I don't have a lot to say today, obviously. I just wanted to write about it so I'd remember it, because the Memory pieces will turn up and the toys will disappear and those two-year-old hands might not want to do laundry with me someday soon. I'm in no hurry for that day to come.

Keep making messes, little girls. Leave your evidence.