Are you a mom, or soon to be one?

I peed my pants when I saw this video on youtube. This is the real deal and any lady who has been a mom for more than 5 days will see the humour in this. If you haven't reached this mommy milestone you won't think it's funny at all.



Now, after watching please let me share a personal story.

I find that the 1-4 age range the nastiest for messes. Children have not yet mastered eating while moving, or improvising cleaning techniques. Children in this age range are not at all bothered by the smell of rotting food or drink. It was during those years when I had three kids that were generally in this age range that I realized that the van is truly a no-mans-land. I think it was after a soccer game that I decided to treat the kids to a trip to McDonald's for some soft-serve ice cream. Those cones are white and small and generally easy to tackle. By the time we got home all that remained of the treats were those lines of melted soft-serve down the kids forearms. At the time I had one kiddo in a full safety harness and two in the high-backed boosters. Soccer season was from May into June or July. In the mid fall of that year we decided to jump at the chance for a good deal on a used van, so it was time to get the old van cleaned out for sale. I started by filling a green garbage bag with dried up food items. These are the items that are still recognizable even though they have spent months on the floor or in the cup holders. French fries, Timbits, cereal, cookies (some not even ground into a fine powder!) After the garbage was hauled out I vacuumed. Easy enough. Then came the Windex and Armour All. Lastly I took out all the car seats to give the leather a wipe. What's this? I found an up-side down ice cream cone. Hm, I guess I'll have to toss this into the garbage bag I thought to myself. The cone refused to budge, it was firmly fused to the seat. I wiggled and pulled on that cone and it would not let go. Finally I wrapped my whole fist around it and heaved. The cone snapped in half and what was left was a grey compound holding the cone rim to the seat. I grabbed some handy tools and a bucket of water with rags. I used a Philips screwdriver to pry the cone, piece by piece from the back bench. I finally got the toxic refuse down to it's grey core of chemical-molecular metamorphosis. Nothing from my cleaning supply cupboard would diminish that mound of "ice-milk" dessert turned adhesive. I had to bring the van into an auto detailer where I'm sure someone had to don long rubber gloves and a haz mat suit to address the problem. Heavy duty solvents must have been required to loosen that "dairy-product" binding agent. I'm sure the detailer was a little curious as to what he was actually trying to remove. He never asked me and I was too embarrassed to say that a McDonald's ice cream cone turned upside-down on a car seat went unnoticed for months, through an entire summer. Mark complains about the van every time he gets into it, which is not very often. And anytime we take a family trip longer than four hours, or have eaten in his car as a family, off it goes to the auto detailers.

My kids are older now, but the van looks as nasty as ever. Instead of lost dinky cars and Barbie shoes or french fries and Cheerios, it's homework papers, gum wrappers, half drank juice bottles, pencils and yes, golf balls. Recently, an apple core in the final stages of decomposition was found while I drove along and had to deal with shrieks and gags. So I still have a fear of checking all cracks and crevices for what I might find. Until the kids start breaking out in a mysterious rash, I figure things can't be too bad back there.