TAMPA, Fla. — Ever feel like that laundry pile never gets smaller or the kitchen never stays clean, especially when children are around?
Florida mother Esther Anderson knows the feeling well thanks to 15-month-old Ellia. Whenever she turns her back on a neatly folded stack of clothing or a dust pile it’s only a matter of seconds before Ellia steps in, sending her mother back to square one.
Rather than despair, Anderson decided to make light of those moments by turning them into an 1:21 video delighting viewers worldwide. Since being posted on her Facebook page last Wednesday, the video has been viewed more than 68 million times and shared from her page more than two million times.
“I just wanted to show that this is part of life being a mom,” said Anderson, who documents her adventures as a first-time mother on her blog, “Story of This Life.”
“Babies tear things up and take them apart; they unravel your life. Something would be wrong if they didn’t. You would be a helicopter mom.”
The idea for the video began in the laundry room. As Anderson moved clothes from the washer to the dryer Ellia intervened. Anderson fetched her DSLR camera, set it up in front of the machines and went back to work, letting Ellia do her worst as she filmed the results.
She repeated the process the next day in the kitchen. As she attempted to sweep the floor and unload the dishwasher, she indulged Ellia’s mischief longer than she normally would for the sake of the camera, and to prove a point: “At the end of the day you look at your house and it looks like you’ve done nothing all day long.”
But that’s OK.
“Moms around the world are dealing with the same stuff,” she said. “I think that’s why the video has been so popular. You don’t have to be American or speak English to know this is what kids do.”
And, we love them anyway. Right?
