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.
