Have you ever seen a child while you’re out shopping – their face looking like it hasn’t been cleaned in days, hair a mess, clothes looking like they’ve been worn for a week? I’m sure we have all seen one. I know I did just this week.

It was Hope!

I can tell you for sure though, that she had definitely showered and washed the previous night, I had brushed and done her hair in the morning, and I had put clean clothes on her in the morning. The truth is… kids get grubby!

I will admit I have often looked at kids and questioned in my mind how a parent could allow a child to look so messy and be ok with it. That was, until I had my own kids (and in partcular Hope, and again, even more so, when she isn’t 100%).

I purposely don’t get Hope dressed until after she’s eaten her breakfast because I’m sure half of it ends up on her clothing. Thankfully, we don’t get so much in our hair anymore. So it’s not surprising that by the time she’s had morning tea and lunch, her clothes are a mess.

Then there’s her hair… I blame having glasses on that she pushes up and down as the reason her hair sometimes gets messy. It doesn’t matter how many clips I put in, she still ends up with hair in her face or her ponytails coming loose.

And her face… well, when you love your food as much as Hope does and you want to shove as much in your mouth as possible… it’s going to get on your face. As I wrote that, I can imagine everyone now trying to picture Hope shoving food in her face and perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration. She doesn’t ALWAYS love her food, but there are some foods that she does love like yoghurt, bananas, fruit bars and, of course, chocolate. Even a sandwich can be devoured pretty quickly when she wants to. So when she does eat fast, it does get all over her face and sometimes even after she’s finished and her face has been cleaned, she still manages to smudge more a moment later.

Then add snot to the mix…

Hope was home from school this week. She was snotty, had a nasty sounding cough and doctors said there was some wheezing in the chest. The thing is… she never once seemed sick until you saw the snot or heard a cough. She was still full of beans, wreaking havoc wherever she went, and honestly, eating everything she could get her hands on. She brought me a tub of tomato paste multiple times wanting to eat it, obviously not knowing what it was. And you know what… she got GRUBBY! Not just with food now, but with snot that she would wipe over her face. She hasn’t quite figured out that she needs to blow her nose or ask for a tissue.

At the same time I had Hope home, I still had to get boys organised and to and from school, I had doctors appointments for Hope and shopping to get done as well as trying to get all my work done. So you can imagine, making sure she wasn’t too grubby wasn’t always easy. Sometimes, we’d be off to pick up the boys and I’d rush out the door after giving her face a quick clean, only to find she’d wiped snot across it again by the time we reached school. So now I have a child, who has eaten everything in the house and spilled half of it down her top, she’s got snot wiped over her face, and her hair, well with all the rolling around and craziness… let’s just say it didn’t look brushed.

So… this week made me realise something. I have been quick to judge parents of grubby kids in the past.

A grubby child isn’t a sign of a lazy parent.

A grubby child could be a sign of a happy child, one who’s been running, playing and living life.

A grubby child might be a child who loved their lunch a little too much.

Or it might just be a sign of a busy parent doing their absolute best.

I will admit I do sometimes feel embarrassed when I take Hope out and she doesn’t look pristine, but I realise, I shouldn’t feel embarrassed about it. I am doing my best and sometimes the best I can do is have a grubby child that I cleaned up 5 minutes earlier but managed to get messy again.

She is fed. She is dressed. She is loved. And she is happy.

And that matters far more than looking perfect everywhere we go.