Not considering your children, the law of entropy is the biggest reason you can’t keep a tidy house.

Husband and I don’t always have the time to put all the out-of-place items back where they go, so we designate a holding spot. In my house, that holding spot is the banister that lines our stairs.

On this banister, we’ll put things like the plates from that time we ordered in at 10 p.m. so the kids wouldn’t smell the food and turn into beggars like they normally do. We put things like pens and markers that the 3-year-olds have an astounding ability to find. We put things like clean clothes after we’ve done all the laundry and it took all our energy just to turn the shirts and pants right side out and search for sock pairs.

(“Do they make monogrammed socks?” Husband said after this week’s laundry.

“Well, if they did, we wouldn’t want them,” I said. “The boys manage to lose their socks two minutes after buying a brand new package. Look at all these stray pairs.”

“At least then there would be a one-in-twelve chance that we’d find a match,” Husband said.)

This banister also sees the action of stray toys that somehow made it back upstairs when we weren’t looking, stacks of books that are out of place and we’re just too lazy to put back on the shelf, mugs Husband is growing unintentional science projects in (Materials: coffee cup and coffee. Just let it sit for a month, and see what you get).

But the problem is, when we leave something out, no matter how tiny it is, it’s always going to attract ALL THE OTHER THINGS.

It’s like, hey, guys, why don’t you all come hang out at my party? Obviously, that’s what those doofuses intended, or else they would have put me away. And all the other things listen and obey, unlike my children.

Before I know it, the whole banister is covered in randomness, and what I really want to do is bag it all up, except most of it is articles of clothing, and I know someone else will be wearing that in another year, and I don’t want to buy a new wardrobe for boy number three.

When we cleaned off the coffee table in my bedroom, there was only one thing left out on it: a three hundred page manuscript I’d printed out for revisions, because I didn’t have anywhere else to put it.

Two days later, it had sixty thousand other things hanging around it—a comb someone used to brush a strand of hair (because clearly it wasn’t their whole head), some toenail clippers that, judging by the residue in it, had been recently used on someone’s dirt-encrusted nails, the last year’s electric bills, a random wrapper for a cough drop I’m pretty sure I didn’t eat, and something unidentifiable—a toenail, perhaps?

You can’t leave a single thing out, if you’re really interested in achieving a tidy home. The law of entropy (otherwise known as “If you leave a shirt here, it will turn into a whole pile of shirts, and, probably, boys’ dirty underwear, because clearly this pile is the new dirty clothes hamper, even though no one in the house actually knows how it all got there, because, again, the law of entropy) will win. Every time.

Any job worth doing is worth finishing, is what I always say. I don’t always walk the walk, but I’m really good at talking the talk.

The problem is, when it come to finishing, I’d really rather lie in my bed and read, because it’s been an overwhelming evening, and the boys are still getting out of their beds claiming they have to go potty, even though when I check on them ten minutes later, they’re dancing with the plunger.

So, I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t even try. If I can’t do it right, why should I do it at all? I’m just making more work for myself. (Husband would interject here that I’m a delightfully positive person to know. I’m relatively sure he’s just joking, because I’m actually a pretty big pessimist, which is why me and the law of entropy get along well together, because I can point to that thing Husband put on the banister to “put away later” and let him know that “Entropy is coming to get that,” and he’ll just look at me like I’m crazy, because of course he knows I’m right, but he doesn’t want to admit it. Who’s laughing three days later when that one coffee cup has turned into three forks, two bowls, five more coffee cups, twelve plates, and fifteen spoons? Not me. But still. I win. But not really.)

Here are some of the places entropy most likes to play:

1. The sink.

My dishes multiply like rabbits, and it’s not because there are eight of us. I’ll load the dishwasher, with nothing left in the sink but a single fork that didn’t make it in before I pressed start, and when I come down from my work shift, there are now at least fourteen cups that need to be loaded—and there were only six people hanging out downstairs who know how to drink out of a cup. Explain that math to me, please.

2. Our bed.

I used to have this habit of making my bed and then piling all the things that were on the floor on top of the bed, with the intention of putting them away at some point during the day. You know, chipping away at the mess as I had the time. And then a boy would get his foot stuck in the crib, even though he wasn’t supposed to even be in the crib, because he’s 3, and another boy would fall off the trampoline because he didn’t think about what might happen if he tried to fly to the ground, and a third boy would try to “skate” on two scooters and run into a brick wall. So I gave up on the whole “chipping away at the mess on my bed.”

The bed used to attract a lot of junk. But now the floor does.

3. The coffee table.

I’ve never seen so many papers. But you can bet there will be more tomorrow.

4. The basket in our kitchen.

It’s supposed to be reserved only for important school papers, but if I leave school papers in the basket, they will attract a billion other school papers that should really be in the recycling, because they’re worksheets I’d never keep. At least five worksheets come home with each boy every day, and there’s no possible way to keep all of that. I’d be crazy to try.

Halfway through the week, I get a little burned out on sorting through all the papers, so this basket quickly overflows, spilling onto the counter, which spills onto the floor, which spills out the doors, and pretty soon we’re practically swimming in papers.

I give up.

5. The carpet.

We have a crawling baby now, which means everything he finds on the floor goes right into his mouth. We vacuum all the time, but I swear if there’s one other thing that is left on the floor, all the other things on the bottom of my boys’ feet or in their hands or hidden inside their pockets will find that one other thing. So baby boy has quite a pile of Things That Go In His Mouth, and I feel pretty much powerless to stop it.

I dig it out of his mouth, he puts something back in. I dig it out, he puts something else in. I dig that out, he’s ready with something else. It’s the best game ever.

6. My 3-year-olds’ faces.

They never wipe their faces. They’re old enough to, and we’ve taught them to wash their hands and faces before and after meals, but do they? Well, that’s questionable. Whatever they have on their face is sticky, so, of course, all the other things find a way to that stickiness and stay there. There is dirt, there is snot, and there is wind. Yes, wind. Because in Texas, when the wind is blowing, you can sometimes see it, because it’s blowing dust and cedar and all the other things you don’t really want to be breathing. It all ends up on my twins’ faces.

Their faces also attract berry smoothie, peanut butter they got into when I wasn’t manning the place as well as I should have, the juice from black beans, pollen from the flowers they rub all over their cheeks, grass they like to eat, dirt they like to eat, bugs they like to eat. (Notice a pattern here? They’ve never been sick. It’s quite disgustingly amazing.)

7. My 6-year-old’s pants.

I don’t know what’s with these pants. Maybe my 6-year-old uses them as a napkin. Or maybe they never get washed. For some reason, he has this pair of pants, bright green, that are perpetually dirty. It doesn’t matter how many times I wash them. (I remember them going through the last clothes cycle, because I poured dish soap all over them, which is my best attempt at stain remover.) As soon as he puts them on, there’s a new stain coming at him. Pretty sure those won’t make it through the other four. We’ll just cut it off here.

8. The boys’ bathroom counters.

Every so often, Husband and I will elect not to lock our twins in their bedroom. What always (without fail) happens is one of them (still haven’t figured out who) will wander. He will sneak into his bathroom, open a cabinet he’s been told again and again not to even touch, take out his toothpaste and paint the counter with it. You don’t know sticky until you’ve tripped over some sweat pants the boys left on their bathroom floor and planted your hand on a toothpaste-painted counter to catch yourself. I peeled half my skin off trying to get out of that trap.

This delightful ritual (paint, clean it up, paint, clean it up) has so far attracted two flies and a handful of gnats. Because bathrooms are gross. Especially the ones belonging to boys.

Entropy is a force to be dealt with, but it will never be mastered. So if you’re not going to do it right, I say don’t do it at all.

Now I’ll just go recline on the couch while my kids tear my house apart. There’s not enough time to clean it all up, so why try?

This is an excerpt from The Life-Changing Madness of Tidying Up After Children, the second book in the Crash Test Parents series. To get access to some all-new, never-before-published humor essays in two hilarious Crash Test Parents guides, visit the Crash Test Parents Reader Library page.