Fingerprints in the dust

I had one goal  apart from the "normal" stuff last week.  One.  To bathe and shave both dogs.  I failed:

I promised poor Brook (on the left above, whose eyes you can't even see because her hair is so long) that I'd get her bathed and shaved this week.  And I only have 2 days left to get it done and keep my promise!  On top of the failure of only getting Frazier (the dog on the right) groomed, look what I found when I looked closely at our entertainment center:

Do you see it?  Look at ALL THAT DUST!!!!  I keep a relatively clean house.  I like to think of it as "lived in."  You won't come into my house and wonder if you can sit on my couch, because things here certainly aren't perfect.  But I like to think that you won't come in and wonder if you should sit on my couch because things are at least relatively tidy and clean.  *Sigh*

Failure.  One dog not shaved.  Dusty furniture.  But you know, when I look at those little fingerprints that reveal that dust, I don't actually focus on the dust (at least not most of the time.)  First I see those little tiny fingerprints, left behind not by a white-gloved, judgmental matron, but rather left behind by my daughter who is learning to pull herself up on anything and everything sturdy enough to steady her growing, changing, amazing self.  At least she grabbed the entertainment center rather than the picture frames sitting on the entertainment center.  (We're still working on the baby proofing thing!)

I may have dusty furniture, and maybe only one of my dogs got groomed, but at least one dog is groomed and at least my little girl can pull herself up.  You know, if she wasn't developing right on schedule and pulling herself up on things, I might not know how dusty my entertainment center was, because there would be no tiny fingerprints to show me.

Speaking of developing and growing and entertaining, the other day I left Lily (just for a second) in the living room playing quietly on the floor to run to the kitchen and pull something out of the oven.  I returned to the living room to find this:  

That would be my little girl, proudly with the remote, and the TV turned on behind her.  REALLY!?!?!  Sheesh!  You'd think they wouldn't be able to figure out the on/off button at least until they figured out walking.  :)

I get exasperated sometimes, but most of the time I sit in awe.  I love to watch my little girl learn.  She's learning animal sounds, and has known some for a month already.  She loves kitties, and whenever she sees one she "meow"s at it.  We walked around the state fair this week, and when we got to the photography displays, she meowed and meowed through the animal photos section.  :)  We also watched a live tiger show  and she was transfixed, roaring at the tigers as the trainers coaxed them to do tricks.

She learns new things each day.  She loves books and when I went to pick her up at Mom's today, Mom showed me how Lily can "read" one of her books - she has memorized what the pages say!  She's 11 months old (and clearly a genius!), and taking it all in each day.

I don't want her to remember me someday as the mom who was more worried about my dust than that she learned to walk, or the mom who beat herself up because she only accomplished half her goal.  I'm a self-admitted goal-oriented perfectionist with very high expectations of myself.  I guess I'm learning each day not to lower my expectations of myself, but rather to alter the expectations to reflect what's important in my life.

You don't care if my dog's groomed or not (unless you come to visit and she tries to snuggle up next to you), and you don't care if my house is dusty (who invented dusting anyway!  I HATE dusting!  It's always been my most hated chore - the dust just comes right back, so why wipe it away???).  And you know what, my daughter doesn't care either, as long as her Mommy and Daddy have their priorities in order.

So here's to fingerprints in the dust.  May my home be full of them for years to come!

(P.S.  I plan to dust this weekend.  It's not that I never dust, I do it when it must be done and I have time to do it.  But the whole time I'm doing it, I will be thinking how much I hate it and yet how much I love it when it's done because I don't have to do it again for a long time!)