A vivid mental picture of my life in regards to my "cleaning issues" in which I describe the futility of solving said cleaning issues for your potential laughing pleasure OR your relating solidarity:
*Ahem*
Let me just start out by saying....I have issues. Big ones. Cleaning ones. Cleaning issues that extend out to extreme organizational nerdiness (or if I'm being honest...also neediness). My issues are such that if I am not in control of the cleanliness and organization of my living arrangement, my internals do not do so well. In fact, they can feel so overcome by chaos that I may just want to run away.
I thrive on clean. Organized. Functional...yet aesthetically pleasing...living arrangements.
But, I have another problem; I have a family. A family that I love to death, wouldn't trade for anything, find so much joy, happiness and life in. Oh man, when I get to thinking about them, they are SO worth it, I almost could just stop here and not actually finish this blogpost. Almost.
...But issues.
Let me just put out there too, that I am in my waddling walrus point of pregnancy, so that when it comes to cleaning house, my routine necessarily looks a whole lot different than that of my "non-waddling-walrus" days. For instance, since I can barely bend over without inordinate amounts of huffing and substantial discomfort....I have taken to the "scooting with laundry basket" method. This method is simply grabbing an empty laundry basket (which let's be honest, the laundry basket is never empty, thus you have to dump it's contents out somewhere else for "later" to make it such), scooting on your bum whilst grabbing the plethora of items off the floor and piling them up in the basket to then hopefully "later" distribute to their rightful places in the house. So there's that.
But then, there's kids.
Yes. Let's start with diapers. Now, my kids are out of diapers except for at night. However, come morning when they take it off to clean themselves and get dressed...why...oh why is it that that diaper will make it centimeters to the trash basket...ok, maybe on a good day it is languidly resting half in/half out of the basket...BUT NEVER FULLY IN THE WASTEBASKET!?!?
Ok and then there is the never remembered light left on in the bathroom, toilet seat up, matchbox cars hidden in bookshelves, under beds and any other place you might imagine, 10923809834 stuffed animal "friends" who have been abandoned mid-play for some other "better" thing to do....like snack...
Snack. Yes....I shall move on to the food cleaning issues. One might think in looking at the sheer amount of crumbs and goop that winds up on the floor, tabletop, and any other place but the mouth, that we don't teach our kids manners. Or maybe even some people might wonder if we have even introduced our 3 and 5 year old to a simple spoon and fork yet? I don't know. But it's bad. If it weren't for the ants that can sniff out a single crumb from a mile away, I don't know that I would be bothering to sweep the floor after every meal, pre-meal, snack and pre-snack (we love food around here).
Yes, let's talk about those ants for a second. Apparently everyone in our neighborhood struggles with these little guys. Yes, there are the ants who live under the table scoping out my kids droppings. However, I think that there is a conspiracy against me to cause further anxiety and annoyance at their never ending-won't-die-and-stay-dead presence...JUST because I am pregnant and bum scoot a lot. Seriously...I don't even see the ones that plague my countertops (that I try to wipe down at least 30984 times a day to feel like we aren't "gross" people) eating food as they traipse across my counter on their merry little way to who knows where and WHY!!?!? Ok ants, laugh it up. You win.
One last but not even close to conclusive picture of my struggle with cleaning. Coloring, crafts, and paper airplanes. I know, I know. It's great that my kids love to be artistic and creative. I should be thrilled that I am seeing some fruit in my efforts to cultivate that in them. But...but but...but...the papers! the shards, scraps, airplanes, stickers stuck forever on the wood of our only table and chairs set, the crayons somehow inside couch cushions, the marker that is washable so *they* say, hanging out for weeks of scrubbing before fading....aghhh! But...
But then I think about the fact that all of these struggles, messes, frustrations, and never ending work mean that I am blessed with two (soon to be three!) amazing kids that bring that aforementioned joy, happiness and life into the house! They are part of what make this house a HOME. Do I want order, organization, and cleanliness!? uhhhh yeah. I still thrive on it. Can I work more with teaching the kids to be helpful, aware and even find similar joy in being clean? Sure. Definitely, I can improve there. I can also stand to just ignore the house and just partake in the snacking, coloring, crafting, playing, diaper tossing (ok, maybe not diaper tossing) and try to breathe in the life they are experiencing...with them.
.....Heh....ehh heh hehe....Breathe in. Yeah...as long as I am breathing in my lemon essential oil being diffused throughout the home to hide the fact that I am breathing and not cleaning. ;)
Plus, if I did too much cleaning today, I might have accidentally thrown away this little gem...the family portrait of our alien-fly resembling family:
So, final question: How do I handle the remainder of my struggle-bus issues of never ending clutter!? Why, take that laundry basket full of random toys "to put away later," and dump them in the garage....to clean up/sort through/throw out....."later." And then, finally, go find the laundry (clean and unfolded or dirty, could be either) that I had dumped out earlier so that I could use the basket to bum scoot clean, and put it back in the basket....to take care of.....LATER!!!!
Of course. Obviously.
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