Mom vs Me..

I've been thinking alot lately about how different my mom and I are. The way I parent, compared to the way she parented. The way I clean, compared to the way she cleans. She was definitely born to be a mother of girls. Back when my sister and I were kids, her personality then, she never would have survived in a house full of boys. She was always cleaning, and very organized. The floor was vacuumed twice a day, and everything was dusted every day. She did all of this crazy stuff while raising my sister and I, and running an in-home daycare. At one time, she had 8 kids all day, and still cleaned like a crazy person. I do have to mention, however, that she is less extreme now, and she loves that she has been given 4 grandsons. She rolls around on the floor with them, and is less uptight. Her house is still spotless, but she doesn't obsess about cleaning now. She was the type of mother that was too quiet around her babies, so, we slept like crap.

I am her opposite. In just about every way. I was born to be a mother of boys. I-would-never-survive in a house full of girls. (I shudder to think about all the pepto pink, and pukey purple.) We've joked that my house is loud, when no one is home. My boys are extremely well behaved, and not the typical crazy, jumping around boys, but they 'are' boys. We don't play pretty princess, and momma and baby. We play pirates, and tickle monsters, and dinosaurs, and lions, and pretend karate, etc. We have boo boos and dirty knees. The toilet seats are usually up. There is farting and burping. I like a clean house. I really, really do. But I don't clean every day. I swiffer-vac the floors and vacuum the rugs 5ish days a week, but it is summer, so in-and-out almost can't be prevented.

I joke that I can't possibly be from the same gene pool as my mother, but we look too much alike. My sister on the other hand, is a carbon copy of my mother. Her apartment looks like the model apartment, that the landlords would show to new renters. It's so clean, I think it's sterile. She probably could have had her c-section in there with no problem.

I wonder if I'm relaxed because Mom wasn't? It cant be just that I'm lazy...