"Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing."
-- Phyllis Diller
It’s been a very loooong Easter weekend. We had family around for 2 days and 2 nights and it was fun don’t get me wrong. I’ve just discovered that I am somewhat obsessive compulsive when it comes to house cleaning. I like things in their place. I like order and will do anything to preserve it. I have an aunt who used to get up at 4am to clean her house. I am not THAT far down the road…yet. Her house generally looks like one out of the pages of House & Home. I just strive for order more than the germ-free sanctity of a freshly sanitized bathroom.
Add four kids, 2 adults, 38 Easter eggs and some generic chaos to the mix and the result: a very rattled, still vainly striving for perfection, me. I think at some point I actually WAS following them around with a dustpan and broom. Mostly I tried to ignore the bomb site that was my daughter’s room and just let it go, whilst shouting vague orders in the kid’s direction to tidy up. They totally ignored me of course – shoving things under the bed and declaring their cleaning done.
At about hour T minus 1, I eventually gave up and let chaos reign. They are kids after all and it was the Easter weekend. Some rules are meant to be broken or at least loosened up a little some of the time. So they had a happy hour of being able to run around screaming, throwing things and generally being kids. Yay,me.
We then went to lunch at my cousin’s house on Easter Monday. Her house is nothing less than perfect – even her 3 year old daughter’s room looks scarily like no-one actually lives there. I realised I had gone a little overboard with my obsessiveness when my BIL commented to my aunt (while watching her sweeping, picking up, polishing, serving, washing dishes), that my middle name was actually Lucille (my aunt’s name). Oh dear, it seems middle age has finally caught up with me and I am becoming my aunt. My resolve: Live more, clean less. At least until tomorrow when the dust bunnies catch up with me again.
Dust Bunnies: Easter?
ReplyDeleteBut we'll always have the wine, eh? Long after the industrial bleach has burnt the top layer off your skin. It was lovely.
@Husbands Anonymous: Yes Easter Dusty Bunnies not to be confused with Dusty Springfield who is NOT a bunny. What a lovely mental image of top layer of skin burnt off. Hmmm. Wine yes - we love that wine.
ReplyDeleteI could so learn to be a little more like you...
ReplyDeleteThe first part of letting it go is tough. But once you begin, it's amazingly easy to keep getting better and better (worse and worse) at not picking up. Now, I generally ask myself "Will it start smelling, and/or will people blame me?" If the answer is no to both, let it be.
ReplyDelete@Angel: No darling I wish I could be less like this - it's damn exhausting!
ReplyDelete@Briane P: I am liking the CONCEPT, its the reality I am having difficulty with - messy home - seriously!? Maybe some valiums will help.