The Cleaning Monster

Hubby, WEB, and I got home late the other night from my parents' house. We had spent the day with some friends and then went over to see my parents. It had been a few days since my mom had seen WEB, and she needed her "fix". We got home at around 10pm. We put the wee-babe to bed and then it happened...our house was attached by the midnight cleaning monster!

Hubby jumped on and played a video game for an hour and a half while I went to town. I did the dishes because we go through bottles so fast that it seems like it is an every hour occurrence to clean them. Then I swept and wet-Swiffered the Kitchen floor. Next I was off to the bathrooms. I swept and wet-Swiffered the floors in there, along with wiping down the counters and cleaning the mirrors. As if that wasn't enough, I also wiped down the baseboards and window sills in all of the rooms.

These days it is hard to do chores during the day. I am gone from our house 4 days a week, so I have 3 days to do what I need to do. On those days that I am home it is tough to stay focused on one task at hand because nap time can last anywhere from 5 minutes to 90 minutes. So if I start to clean a bathroom when WEB goes down for a nap, chances are he'll wake up in 5 minutes when I am nowhere near finished cleaning. So I grab my screaming child, change and feed him and think of something else I need to do, like start laundry. Then it's time for WEB to go down for a nap again, so I start laundry, forgetting about the bathroom I started cleaning. He sleeps for say, 15 minutes, so I at least got a chance to put a load of laundry in. This usually continues throughout the day until 3 or 4pm rolls around and I realize that I have 32 things started and haven't completed any of them.

Honestly, I had a bit of a meltdown regarding this subject the other night. I felt like I was slacking with my job as a housewife. There were lots of chores that piled up this weekend and I was just overwhelmed with everything that needed to get done. I needed help catching up and am not good at asking for it, so instead I cried. I'm sure part of it was hormones and lack of sleep because my eyes wouldn't stop leaking tears.

So I guess the moral of my story is to plan out your chores, and be realistic. If WEB is having a good day, then I can obviously get more accomplished, which will compensate for the days when he requires a lot more attention and won't let me put him down for more than 5 seconds. And as long as WEB is happy and taken care of, then that's the most important job to accomplish each day.