Have you ever noticed that no matter how long or well you clean it is usually for nothing? I have a standing bet with myself that within 6 hours of any given floor in the house being mopped, someone will spill something. It's inevitable and it happens like clockwork. But let me skip a week of mopping and nothing hits the floor! I just don't get it. It's like the cleaning gods are playing tricks on me because they know how much I hate to do it.
I don't think I ask much. Just a simple request - pick up after yourself. Easy enough. Put away what you get out and wipe up what you spill. But apparently this request isn't specific enough. It should be more like, "hang your clothes back on the hangers when you knock them off" or "wring out the sponge before you wipe up your mess and then rinse it out". My daughter is the only person I know that can make two pieces of toast and leave a trail of crumbs four feet long and six inches wide on the counter. I mean how does that happen and you still have two entire pieces left to eat? It also amazes me how my sweet husband can get something within three feet of a trashcan but not be able to actually put the item in the trash. The bathroom and kitchen counters are the catch all for popcans, Dixie cups, toliet paper rolls (don't even get me started on the inability of replacing the toliet paper!), etc. And the girl is just as bad - putting a finished bowl of cereal in the sink but not pouring the leftover milk down the drain or leaving a bottle of pop in the fridge with only a swallow left in it. Even the pets are against me. Skully dribbles food all over the floor and steals any kind of paper just to shred it everywhere. Fiona scoops up her water with a paw and then leaves a row of lone paw prints through the kitchen. Wolfie can destroy a made bed in record time just so he can have a nap under the covers. And Zoe will pull a tablecloth half off the table before you know what happened.
Now I fully understand that I am now a stay at home mom and my priorities have changed. However, I do not want to spend my entire day cleaning. John and I consider ourselves retired even though technically we are on medical disability. So as a retired person, shouldn't I be able to spend my days as I wish? You know reading, writing, facebook-ing, swimming, lying in the sun, enjoying my kids (both the two- and four-legged variety) and having dates with the hubs. Nowhere in my perfect daily routine is cleaning the house from top to bottom. But it is not to be simply because the family can't follow the golden rule.
Occasionally, the unbelievable happens and the family cleans. Well, their version of it anyway. John's definition is to pick up everything he doesn't think should be where it is and dump it on my desk in the Mom Cave. Then he will reorganize what is left so that it isn't where I need it to be. For instance, the kitchen. I will organize things one way and then when he cooks he will move it all simply because it is easier for him when he cooks. Now mind you, if I were to do this and dump stuff in the Man Cave there would be all kinds of hell to pay. When we first got married, I didn't realize he had certain OCD tendencies. He would place something somewhere and I would innocently move it, causing major disruption in the house. Later, when I figured out his issues, I would move stuff just for laughs. I wouldn't even have to move the object far - just a slight rotation or 1/4 inch one way or the other and his radars would be alerted. For some reason, he didn't see the humor like I did! But now he goes behind me and rearranges things and I don't see the humor in it either, mostly because he doesn't think that I have any sense of how to decorate! Josie's version of cleaning is a little less complex. Everything gets shoved under her bed or in the back of her closet. And this is where it remains until all the stuff begins to ooze out from under the bed. Then I go in with an army of heavy duty trash bags and commence clearing it out. My all-time best is seven bags and a box. And that is just from under the bed. We are currently working on this and she is getting much better about the cleanliness of her floor and room in general, much to her dismay.
When I go to other people's houses, they alway seem so neat and orderly. It seems like their homes are maintenance free. Floors and counters spotless, no clutter, no nests of stuff that never seems to have a place of it's own. Like they have to put no effort in cleaning their homes. They have their families trained right. I long for the day that mine will be enlightened by the golden rule. When they will not fear the trashcans and learn that everything has a place - and that place is not the Mom Cave. But until that day, you will find me picking up the things that can't find their way back to where they belong and the throwing away the pop cans that can't quite make it to the trashcan. Oh yes, and constantly fighting the spills that always seem to find their way to the floor.
