Let There Be Chaos

The day before Christmas Eve, we were stuck inside all day. After a weekend of over 70 degree weather – in DECEMBER mind you – the rain started pouring and didn’t let up.

At all.

Big Roo had been up half the night with the fever but by the afternoon was back to his usual self. And so, we had to check one more thing off our Christmas to-do list: decorate the sugar cookies.

Before I had kids, I looked forward to craft projects, making messy art and squishing Play-Doh. But now with two boys I learned a few things:

• Play-Doh colors being squished together makes me cringe
• My kids don’t much like doing crafts (at least with me)
• Cleaning up the mess is a massive undertaking, even if the kids help

For someone who considers herself relatively creative, letting my kids freely create is sometimes a mess I’d rather not even get into.

Despite all of that, I was actually looking forward to decorating cookies with them. I bought three new types of sprinkles and piping bags with decorating tips (something I’ve never really bought before).

And boy was it messy. On the table, on the floor, on their clothes. Too much food coloring, too many sprinkles, icing overkill.

But you know what? I didn’t mind. I shed that “Play-Doh must not mix” mentality and let them be messy and create.

As I go into 2014, I want to remember this:

Let there be chaos in this house.

Let there be messes to clean up.

Let there be sprinkles to sweep and spills to mop.

Let there be icing under fingernails and sweet smudged faces.

Because life without all of that would be quite boring and quite… quiet.

And so I embrace it, bright pink frosting and all.