I vividly remember the mess my bedroom was as a teenager. It drove my parents crazy but the rugs lack of visibility never seemed to bother me. When I needed something, I knew just where to dig to find it! I believe a messy room comes with the territory of being a teenager.
Ever since having our baby girl, I have told myself “one day her room will be a disaster and my teenage mess will return…hopefully not doubled…but I will not let it bother me!” She is only two and half so I thought I had years to brace for the impact. Not true. I can’t figure out if it’s her way of preparing me, the good Lord’s or a combination of the two. Her new favorite thing to do is unload her dresser! She starts out the day in the clothes I pick out and dress her in. As the day goes on, she digs for a skirt, then another. Later, she often returns to find different socks, another shirt, and most likely to put pants on under her skirt. She is never satisfied with the first thing she tries on either, it takes five tries to find the one she likes (have to admit she gets that honest)! This was cute the first few times but after several days of unloading, reloading, and unloading the drawers again, I was growing weary.
I thought maybe if I let the clothes lay for a day or two that it would ruin the fun and she’d hopefully forget about this fun game. That didn’t work though. She would dig through the pile and the clothes ended up everywhere. Back in they all went.
Earlier this week, I was doing laundry. I put her clean clothes in her drawer and continued on to Peyton’s room. I could hear her happily playing in her room next door. She was carrying on a conversation with her stuffed animals. I walked down the hallway with a smile on my face, curious to see if I could catch a glimpse of a precious moment between her and her imagination. I slowly looked into her doorway and BOOM - it felt like my smile fell straight through the floor. Her drawers were open and empty. All the clothes I just folded and put away thrown into a pile on the floor. The only thing left in the drawers was a lone pair of nylons.
There sat Jayden, on top of her changing table. I stared in amazement as I made my way around the heaping pile to get to her. I was thinking if this would ever end and what I was going to do about it. I was also wondering if she was possibly doing this on purpose. Ready to have a talk with her, I said “Jayden, you can not unload your clothes from your drawers.” Her big blue eyes got even bigger and she innocently said “Mommy I had to find jammies for my bunny cause her needs to go to sleep. There beside her was her bunny, it’s head on a little pillow, tucked under a blanket, and a Curious George doll that plays lullabies playing in the background. She had two pairs of her pajamas laying on her lap and she was trying to pick one. She was so darling, if she hadn’t already emptied the drawers herself I probably would have dove right in with her, helping her pick the perfect pair!
That day I learned a lesson in judgment. Had I taken my eyes of the pile of clothes, I may have noticed what my sweet girl was really doing. We so often judge a person or a circumstance before we really know what is going on. Let’s turn our eyes to the entire situation when we find ourselves being judgmental. Chances are good that there’s more than meets the eye. We may find ourselves seeing a precious moment beyond the mess!
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