Skip to main content

I Need A Cinderella

 I like to describe our house as very "lived in."  It sounds better than "dirty."  It is dirty.  And messy.  I clean all day long, but you'd never know.  My friend recently told me she hires a house cleaner.  It sounds dreamy, but it wouldn't work for us.  The cleaner would never be able to leave.  She'd never be done.  It's fine.  It's a phase.  Probably.  

We were supposed to have guests for dinner the other week.  I know - it's a bold move inviting people over while we are in this stage of life.  Nonetheless, we did.  I was trying to get ahead of the mess while the kids were in bed and cleaned my floors the night before the dinner party.  The day of the dinner, everybody was sick so we had to postpone.  

I decided I wasn't going to let a clean floor go to waste.  I was going to enjoy it for at least a weekend.  The challenge, I told myself, was simply to sweep things up after every meal.  In my head, this seemed reasonable.  The reality is, my kids eat something like fifteen meals a day.  They also, apparently, eat with their mouths wide open, allowing crumbs to cascade to the floor during each meal.  Additionally, the crumb trails and piles suggest they are moving throughout the entire square footage of the house during this process.  How else do you explain yogurt under the table?  Raisins and cracker dust behind the couch?  Apple bits and pieces in the bathroom?  Cookie crumbs on the bedroom floor?  I thought we had some vague rule about eating at the table...  

The kids think cleaning is my favorite because it's what they most often see me doing.  It's not my favorite.  IT'S NOT MY FAVORITE.  Tripping over stray shoes and baby dolls on my way to the bathroom is also not my favorite.  We have implemented an all hands on deck 10min clean-up before Ross gets home from work. The goal is just that we don't look like victims of a break-in when he walks through the door.  It definitely helps.  

With the once a day toy clean-up on the books, now we are looking for ways to more efficiently clean the dust, dirt, and cobwebs.  The boys tried to invent a new method of mopping the floor by dragging each other while sitting on wet rags, but they mostly just wound up with wet butts.  We bagged that...for now.  If anyone has any creative or innovative ideas to add to the toolbox, please leave your advice and comments.  I'll take them all.  Or if you have a passion for cleaning windows, I may be able to make your dreams come true.  Call me.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Sheltering in Place

In the past three months Corona Virus has more or less turned the world on its head.  I feel almost guilty for not being more stressed or put out by the whole thing.  We have been extremely fortunate. What we thought was a most impractical move on our part, wound up being a huge blessing.  With our two boys and our two newborns, we moved out of our house with no yard in the city limits and into my parents' house in the country while waiting for our new house to be completed.  The weekend we moved "quarantine," "social distancing," and "shelter in place" became the new mantra of our state.   Moving in with my parents meant ten plus acres of play space and two extra able bodied adults to help even out the score with the four kids.  Win for the St. Clair's!  Unfortunately, my parents are beginning to realize they may have made an error in judgement.   Yesterday, Sawyer gave their cat swimming lessons.   Last week th...

Fear Factor

 Did you know that it has been not  scientifically proven that a baby can smell her mother's presence through a closed door.  It's probably the smell of fear that they are actually attuned to, but nonetheless.  I hold my breath and walk on tiptoe past the baby's room and still get busted nearly every time.  My fear is pungent. Besides waking the babies, I have another fear currently in the forefront of my mind.  Don't mind me, this is just another episode of True Confessions.. .  Here it is: the boys are getting so much outside time that they are building up incredible endurance.  It's great really, but it is   becoming  so hard to wear them out. It used to be an hour at the playground and we were golden.  Now, they basically put in an eight-hour workday, and it's just a warm-up!  Does anybody have a treadmill....?  Real school is going to be a bit of an adjustment for the big guy next fall.    Speaking of s...

For the Love of Kids

I love the contrasting sides of our children.  It's one of my favorite things that I didn't know I was going to love.  I think it's fair to say that when we have kids, we all know we will love the squishy babies, hearing kids laugh, seeing holidays through their eyes, and dressing them in the cute little outfits (I'm told boys don't wear outfits , but it's my blog). I didn't know how much I'd love seeing my loud, dirt loving, gun fanatic, wrestling maniac five-year-old turn into the sweetest and most gentle big brother while holding his baby sister.  He sits and quietly tells her stories about his fishing and hunting conquests unaware of anyone else in the room, and my heart absolutely melts. Then we have my slightly crusty, flannel loving, mismatching three-year-old that will choose a princess dress from the costume closet because although he likes sand and rocks and sticks and filth, he also likes and appreciates things that are beautiful. I lov...