Making messes and memories

Thank you Vanity Fair® Napkins for sponsoring this post. Take on everyday messes with Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins!

Growing up, on special occasions like a birthday, my Dad would make “Daddy’s Special Pancakes” or DSP’s.  They were always Swedish Crepes, and he would fling them to us from the pan, across the island, and we’d try to catch them on our plates. I still love making DSP’s (though I guess if I make them, they’re MSP’s right?), but for Jack’s little birthday morning we just went with the old classic stack of fluffy buttermilk pancakes. I haven’t yet introduced him to the joys of chocolate chip pancakes, we’ll save that for a later birthday. The amount of sugar he got in the syrup alone was more than enough for a boy of only two.  But oooh boy, you’re gonna be excited about chocolate chip pancakes one day. And blueberry ones too (or booburies as he calls them right now).

Jack was a huge fan of pancakes, and he kept asking me to do “mo’ snow, mama!” with the powdered sugar.  Making a pancake breakfast with a toddler, though, holy cow, talk about a sticky mess. I think I used like ten Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins just to clean up spilled syrup and pancake batter by the time the morning was over. Normal napkins die a horrible death at the hands of a toddler, so the paper-towel thickness and toughness of the Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins is perfect for our mealtimes, and a welcome break from having to wash a bajillion dish towels a day.

Vanity Fair® Extra Absorbent Napkins  are “made for life’s unexpected mealtime surprises” but really, with a two year old, mealtime surprises and messes are anything but unexpected.  Even if my kid doesn’t eat his food, it’s still all over the place.  

Trying to avoid a messy life with a kid is a fool’s errand, and the antithesis to learning and fun in my opinion. Having lots of clean-up is the name of the game, but the memories and the joy will be the lasting impression, at least for them. I’ll probably remember all the cleaning up I did, though I’m sure the giggles will overshadow the cleaning when I look back on days like this.

I can’t believe my little baby is such a kid now.  He’s chattering up a storm all the time, loves reading books, and will sit and play creatively with legos while I drink my morning coffee now, which is a godsend.  Just watching him sit on the counter and nom on pancakes like a grown up boy was such a surprising moment. It’s so weird how the time flies by and also moves slower than molasses.  The first 18 months were the hardest of my life, but now that he’s playing and talking, I’ve found my groove in the mother role. I know there are a lot more messes to be made, a lot more tears to cry, a lot more tantrums to be thrown, but I’m looking forward to this next year as he grows into a bigger kid.  And hopefully those sticky messes like this one will come along with fun, happy memories that make the hard days worth it.