Bless Our Mess: Chronicles of a Sensory Mom

As an Occupational Therapist practicing in Early Intervention the majority of children I see are seen within their natural home environment.  Families invite me into their homes and allow me the pleasure of working with their precious little ones.  I am beyond honored to have this privilege to enter their personal space and be able to have such an impact on these young children.

That being said, I can’t tell you how many times I have had a parent apologize to me about the current state of their home or the mess.  My usual response is “I’m a mom too, and my house looks exactly the same most days.”  I am not one to judge because, to be honest, my response is completely honest.  My home is an absolute disaster area 95% of the time.

Believe me I know from firsthand experience with my three little ones, parenting is hard and it’s a lot of work.  There are times where you are just dead tired and don’t have the energy to tackle those dishes, fold the piles of laundry, or clean up the toys off the living room floor.  I am right there with you.  There are plenty of times that I just crawl into bed leaving the house in complete disarray pretending it isn’t really there.  Maybe the maid will come and clean it all up before morning; just as the nanny will come and do all the night time feedings and wake ups too right?!

My family has learned to walk around the pile of toys and baskets of laundry that get left on the floor.  My boys are busy and rambunctious.  They are very active and constantly on the go exploring new things and finding new sensory experiences throughout the day.  Sometimes it’s hard to just keep up with them let alone pick up after them.

I am constantly telling parents that I work with that messes are perfectly fine and a part of life with kids.  I am constantly sharing with them that my house is in the exact same state; and it is even as I write this post.  However, I too find myself apologizing to visitors when they drop by and the house isn’t in it’s magazine cover perfect state.  I too am the mom that spends hours upon hours cleaning the house top to bottom to prepare for someone to come to my home.  There is so much pressure to be the perfect parent, to be supermom and do it all.

I decided to pull back the curtain with this post, and inform you all that my house is a mess most of the time and it’s okay.  I have accepted that this is my life as a mom to too very busy boys and a baby girl.  I don’t have the time to devote to deep cleaning and organizing, and to be honest even if I spent all this time cleaning five minutes later the house would be a disaster all over again.  So I’ve decided to stop being embarrassed about my messy home and you should too.

When I look around my home and think about the sensory benefits my kids are getting from me not focusing so much on the state of my home and more on their sensory needs it makes my heart melt.  I know that my children are loved, nurtured, and supported.  They are growing and learning and that’s all that matters.  When we look back on these memories years from now, I know that my children won’t remember the toys spread all over the floor or the piles of laundry waiting to be folded.  They will remember the way their bodies felt, the engagement we had together as parent and child, and the happiness that filled their little souls.

So here are four examples of why I am blessed for the mess in my home from a sensory perspective:

1. Sticky fingerprints and messy floors means tactile sensory experiences:  My boys love tactile and messy play.  We are constantly playing in Sensory Bins of dried beans, sand, pasta and more.  Likewise, you can almost always find remnants of these sensory bin fillers on my floors and sometimes even stuck to my carpet.  When my boys play with textures they make it a full body experience the textures get dumped on the floor and they explore with their whole body.  Does this make a huge mess? Of course, but when I think about the amazing sensory benefits my little ones are getting from this type of play the mess is worth it.  They are exercising, strengthening, and exploring their sensory system and that is the foundation of true learning.
2. Pillows and Couch Cushions in disarray means lots of vestibular and deep pressure sensory experiences:  My boys love rough and tumble types of play.  They are constantly on the go climbing and jumping.  Honestly, our home is treated like an indoor jungle gym at times.  The boys can be found throwing all the pillows on the floor and jumping, crashing, and running into the pillows for deep pressure input.  We are constantly jumping on the furniture or throwing the couch cushions around.  They can be found playing the floor is lava on a regular basis.  Our furniture is well used and warn in, but I just figure this is life with kids.  Messes are going to be made and when it comes down to it my children’s sensory regulation and overall development is more important than material items or the state of my home.  My boys are getting movement and deep pressure input that their little bodies desperately need and that’s all that matters.
3. Laundry Thrown in Baskets and the Floors Half Swept means my little ones “Helped” with the chores for heavy work: In our household we encourage our little ones to help with chores as much as possible.  Helping with chores provides such amazing deep pressure sensory input.  This type of work is known as heavy work and can be very regulating for children’s sensory system.  My boys love “helping” with the chores, but since they are so little I put helping in quotations.  Would it be easier to do the housework myself? Yes it would, having my two and four year old help with folding laundry or sweeping floors etc. means the floors aren’t swept perfectly and the laundry remains a wrinkled mess despite how hard we work to fold it.  But the boys are getting such amazing sensory benefits from this type of work that I’ll take the half swept floors and wrinkly clothes.
4. Toys Covering the Floors means my little ones are exploring, learning, and engaging in play:  I’m going to be honest, when I say toys covering my floor I’m talking about you can barely see the floor let alone walk in the room amount of toys mess.  My boys are busy, very busy, they are constantly dumping buckets and bins of toys. They are constantly exploring and playing with toys.  Even if we try to work on cleaning up toys as we go, the toys seem to be dumped faster than we can clean them up.  The fact is my boys are engaged in toys, they are sitting for sometimes hours at an end playing with their toys and each other.  They are getting amazing benefits from unstructured free-play without added demands or stress on their sensory system.  The fact that my boys have moments of sensory regulation where they can sit and play with toys, each other, and me makes me so happy and these are moments we will cherish forever as a family.