Those Who Say You Can Keep A House Where Kids Live Clean Must Have A Maid

crumb meme I did something incredibly dumb this morning– I tried to clean the house. Usually I know the best time to get any deep cleaning done is while my kids are asleep, but the thought of spending Friday night with a sponge in my hand made my inner 15-year-old sob and stomp off to update her Myspace page, so I decided to get the cleaning done during the day. It took approximately fifteen seconds of cleaning with two toddlers around to remind me exactly why moms get nothing done around the house.

When I came downstairs this morning I took one look at the toynado that was my living room and couldn’t take the mess a single second longer. I decided to clean up quickly before I made myself breakfast. My toddlers were high chair hostages, eating their own cereal with banana and failing miserably at using spoons, so I thought I could deal with the toys quickly. That was, of course, until I started clearing the rug and found several piles of hidden smashed goldfish treasures from the snack I thought they ate yesterday, but rather hid like squirrels preparing for hibernation.

I paused picking up to drag out the vacuum. And also the steam mop because undoing the childproof lock on the closet door takes forever, so I knew if I didn’t grab the mop now that wasn’t happening again anytime soon. Of course, my kids were done eating by this point and I could only keep them in their highchairs so long before I started to feel like a CIA interrogator, so I unleashed the Krackens, who promptly dumped out the toy bins I had just filled.

The boys momentarily distracted, I managed to wipe down the powder room and get the fingerprints off the door. Then I pressed my luck by running upstairs to wipe down the bathroom counter up there too. And that’s when I heard the vacuum turn on. As much as I wish fairy godmothers were real and wanted to believe this was mine coming to do my chores for me while I went for a pedicure, I knew that wasn’t the case, so I raced back downstairs where I found the boys giving each other hickeys with the vacuum hose.

I bribed them with ice pops, plopped them on a towel and tried to set a world record for Fastest Floor Cleaning. Floors 92% crumb free and mopped, I finally turned my attention to the toys. My fantasies for sorting them by type vanished and I settled for shoving them randomly into bins. Then I sat in front of the toy box with my laptop for work like a hockey goalie. I wish I could say it was a shutout, but I’d be lying.

Blogger Esther Anderson of Storyofthislife.com recently released a video that saves me the trouble of setting up cameras in my own home, but trust me when I say this is exactly how my morning went:

[youtube_iframe id=”_bP0Uf3Shd0″]

(image: Martin Novak/Shutterstock.com)

Similar Posts