Endless Entropy

 My house is a science experiment. Actually, there’s no experiment. Our family life has already proved the theory of entropy. No more theory. It’s law. Chaos is inevitable — especially when Mom needs a break.

Take my desk, for example. Each morning once the children are out the door, I take an hour or so to organize it, throw things away, pay bills, answer letters. By mid-morning, I have a clean desk. However, once 3 p.m. hits, and the children are coming home in waves, the piles on my desk reappear: worksheets, art projects, homework packets, junk mail. “See what I made?” “See what I did?” And soon my desk looks like a hurricane hit it again. Entropy. It unfolds around me.

My house — and life — are no different. A few quiet moments in the morning to straighten up and figure out schedules, and then the world starts whirling again.

I don’t want to give the impression that our lives are a constant disaster. But, some days or weeks or months or years, that’s the unfortunate truth; disaster from sunrise to sunset.

Let me illustrate two recent days…

First of all, the Egg Day. I returned home from taking teens to evening activities expecting the youngest children to be in bed. After all, we had finished dinner earlier, cleaned the kitchen and reviewed the evening routine: pajamas, teeth, bed. But just before bedtime, their older sister had become engrossed in her science project: making an egg-safe carrier for an egg drop. Watching her, the younger children had also caught the “egg-drop” fever and were busy constructing their own carriers. Bedtime forgotten, the counter was strewn with every last straw we owned, pairs of scissors and empty Scotch tape rolls.

Nearly every egg in our fridge (which is never empty since we own our own chickens) had been used in a variety of “dropping” experiments. If the eggs hadn’t already been smashed off the front porch, they were wrapped up in odd contraptions of straws and tape (and a few tinker toys), ready for the next big drop.

I took one look at the mess and my exhaustion was complete.

“Everyone in bed,” I announced.

“But we have one more drop to try tonight,” they insisted.

“Sorry,” I said. “We still need a few eggs for breakfast.” I tucked them into bed and then dropped into mine, despite the kitchen mess. My life was behind again. Scrambled egg entropy.

Then there was the day of the warm weather. Forgetting that it was early spring, the sun came out in full force. Naturally, I couldn’t send my toddlers to nap. We picnicked outside and played on the swings with the next-door neighbor girl. I finally went in to clean up the kitchen and left them playing between our respective yards on trampolines and toys.

After 30 minutes, my youngest toddler came in, crying. I could see that her jacket was drenched and assumed that the kids had turned on the hoses and played in water.

“No matter,” I thought, and went to pick her up. But as she walked toward me, I was overcome with the aroma of gasoline fumes. I sniffed her coat. Sure enough, the liquid she was drenched in was not water but gas. “Don’t move,” I commanded her and ran outside, panicked.

The other three children were swinging on the swings. I ran towards them and saw that they, too, were drenched. Their sopping shoes were lying in the grass, and I realized, to my horror, that everything was gas-covered.

“Where have you been playing?” I demanded, calling my neighbor at the same time. They led me to the neighbor’s yard where an old tank was. A connecting hose was lying on the ground, and the entire driveway was soaked with gas.

My neighbor came out of her house to see what the commotion was. Within seconds we had stripped the kids down to their undies, leaving the outside mess to be while we rushed in and bathed our preschoolers. I scrubbed their skin and washed their hair again and again and again. Miraculously, no eyes, mouths, noses or bare skin had been irritated, and they innocently assumed that they were simply in trouble for breaking the neighbor’s tank.

Once they were all clean and the gas smell was gone, my heart rate slowed enough to hug them. “You could have blown up,” I said, and added some warnings about playing where they weren’t allowed.

The next morning the old tank was gone, but the heart-pounding memory remained. Thirty minutes of spring-weather play had gone awry. Entropy. A few minutes of peace and my life evolves into disaster. If I ever stop or pause or rest, the entire universe turns into chaos.

But never mind. This too shall pass. The chickens will lay more eggs. There will be more spring days to play outside (without pending disaster), and eventually — in the years and weeks ahead — I will have more hours than I need to clean a house and restore stability to my universe. And yet, I realize that I may find my future orderly life — without children and chickens and endless entropy — just a bit boring.