The Minnesota Farm Woman

Babies are as cute as cute can be. The more they smile and coo and laugh, the more smitten we become. This, my friends, is all in God’s plan. The Big Guy Upstairs makes babies so cuddly and lovable and such an integral part of our lives because sooner than we parents could ever imagine, they become teenagers. Teenagers are about as cuddly and lovable as a nest full of pygmy rattlesnakes. All right, I will admit that I may be exaggerating just a little bit here. The worst thing about my own sweet baby girl was her room. I begged, pleaded, cajoled, yelled, and grounded to no avail. It was more than messy, it was downright dirty. I finally gave up and just kept the door closed. One warm summer Florida day, I arrived home from work, unlocked the front door, and smelled something. It wasn’t a good something. The odor was sour and musty and definitely needed investigation. I sniffed my way around the living room, bathroom, and laundry room. I checked for water leaks. I got down on my hands and knees to sniff the carpet. I wondered if there was perhaps a dead mouse in the attic. As I moved down the hallway, sniffing all the way, the odor intensified. When I opened her bedroom door, I knew I had found ground zero, and it didn’t take me long to find the pile of damp stinky towels piled on the damp stinky carpet. Any of us who have been parents of young teens know that they either shower for hours or not at all. The not at all showerers are usually males. Parents can tell when their sons become interested in girls because they will start showering for hours, too. Girls usually use two towels per shower. These towels must be clean and smell April fresh and each towel is used only once. (This logic is teenage logic and not my own, by the way.) One towel is used for the clean wet hair and one for the clean wet body. Those towels are now considered “dirty” and are unceremoniously thrown on the floor next to the growing pile of clothes that were pulled off hangers, tried on, then tossed on the floor with the loud lament of “Mom! I’ve got nothing at all to wear!” Boys will pluck the same pair of jeans from the pile and wear them for a week. Even parents with sinus allergies will figure this one out fairly quickly. If you are wondering how the pile got so high and stinky, don’t judge. In the Florida heat and humidity, mold and mildew grow rapidly. We also had a pool and since there were always two or three teenage girls hanging around, emptying the refrigerator and following the aforementioned towel logic, the pile grew quickly. For those of you who are rocking your sweet and cuddly babies right now, don’t despair. As I mentioned earlier, it is all part of the plan. Your children will grow up and become responsible adults, eat organic vegetables, and clean their rooms. They will only occasionally ask you for money. Soon, they will have teenagers of their own, and you will remember the prayer you sent heavenward during those difficult years: “I hope and pray that someday, you will have a child who turns out to be just like you!” You can smile, close the door on the chaos, and go home to your own quiet and neat house. I will bet you a week’s worth of dirty laundry that you will wish that you could have those crazy days back once again, even if it is just for a moment.