Wednesday, April 30, 2014

You down with OCD...Yeah you know me!

I can't stand a mess in my house. I have to make sure things are clean and orderly. I get up each day and cleaning pretty much starts happening. I will throw in a load of laundry, start vacuuming, and the dishes get done. Some mornings I have even gotten most of my house work done by 8am. I like to get it out of the way. I must have things clean!

I hate crumbs! I hate dog hair! But with children and dogs comes both. And since I love my children and my dogs, and am not getting rid of them any time soon, I must clean up after them.

The dog hair, it is everywhere! How dare they shed! There will always be animals in my house so I have to let it go that the inevitable is that there will always be some amount of hair. So this is where I vacuum every single day! Some days twice or do a sweep on the floors.

Crumbs! Ugg, these days they are everywhere. Seriously I think Chase goes out of his way to make a mess when he eats. Jay is not any better (sorry hon if you end up reading this someday, but let's face it, you are not the cleanest person). And now Wes has begun finger foods. Eating becomes a tornado affect with him. It ends up everywhere!


I love these blogs and parenting articles that say to not worry about laundry and cleaning. To focus on spending time with your children. I get it! Really, I do. I feel guilty sometimes that I am scurrying around the house. But who else is gonna do it?! I surely don't have a maid coming in weekly. The housework does not get done by itself. I also think a clean environment is important for my children. I don't want them on a dirty floor and putting things in their mouth that should clearly not be there.

Truthfully,  I enjoy it. I like cleaning. It is gratifying to me to sit back after I have cleaned and not see those damn crumbs!

It's not just cleaning though. It's things like having order. Example: Chase's book shelf. It drives me nutty when the books are not in a neat order or just thrown on the shelf. I have to arrange them weekly. Most of the time knowing it will only be like this for 10 minutes, maybe 20. Another example: Chase's play kitchen set. I like for his play food to be with the other food, dishes with the dishes, and play cookies with the other play cookies... you get what I am saying right? A touch of OCD, maybe a little. But is that such a bad thing? I don't think so.

Maybe just maybe some day some of it will rub off on the boys. At least one of them. Until then I have succumbed to the fact that I will be "forever" cleaning up after them. And I don't even want to think about the teenage years. Messy rooms, smelly clothes, dirty dishes...sounds like a night after a frat party to me, and quite frankly a nightmare!

These are the days of my life! Thank you to Lysol, my vacuum, my Shark steam cleaner and Dawn for getting me through these times.


3 comments:

  1. I can totally relate. A lot of times, I just don't have the time or the energy to keep the house the way I'd like it and that gives me total anxiety. I have learned to let go of a lot- the bins in the playroom are full of unsorted toys- this was after sorting them about 1 billion times and finally realizing it was useless!

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  2. I'm the same way in that I can't relax if things are a mess. I can't cook in a messy kitchen, so I clean it, just to mess it up and clean it again.
    I also like to sort toys :-)
    So, when are we starting the support group ladies?
    And shout out to baby wipes, too! A great cleaning tool!

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  3. Dog hair! Forest will not stop shedding. I vacuum, swiffer, mop... still dog hair. I imagine Lillian to be like the ghosts in Casper where the food just all falls out. I resorted to putting books basket style so they're facing out like in the kids library section because they would all just end up in a great big pile next to the book shelf and I try to rotate toys. I gave up on her kitchen. But seriously when will the laundry stop?

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