For the past few weekends my husband seemed a bit “off.” He was
more annoyed by things, more frustrated, more not liking life so much (in my
opinion). So last weekend I asked him what was bothering him and his answer really
surprised me. It turns out it wasn’t just the annoyance of children (which I
had chalked it up to) but instead he said that he felt like he had to spend the
weekends cleaning and that the house was dirty. At first I kind of wanted to
punch him in the face. As a stay at home mom/housewife I felt like his comment
was a huge slap in the face to me but you know what? He was right.
I do spend my days sweeping, vacuuming, cleaning up toys,
doing laundry and all that “fun” stuff. However, I’m not scrubbing the floors,
or the walls, or cleaning out the fridge on a regular basis. This is precisely
the dirt that he was referring to. I honestly just don’t like doing that stuff.
My mother on the other hand loved to clean. A lot of my memories of her when
she was in good health were of her cleaning. I just didn’t inherit that gene.
Plus, it’s tough with the kids. Who has time to really clean when you have three small children to look after? But I
think I’ve been using them as an excuse. The truth is do I have the time. There
are moments of down time when I could be washing the floor boards but I choose
not to. I choose to be on Facebook. I choose to write blog posts. I choose to
watch General Hospital. Now does that make me a bad housewife? Eh, the jury is
still out.
I do think those things makes me a better mother though. I need
that down time to refuel, to recharge, and to have contact with someone who
wants to discuss things other than crafts, dinosaurs, and Elmo. But my husband’s
comment struck close to home (too close to home). I had been slacking.
So this
past week I started tackling the rooms on by one. I cleaned and scrubbed parts
of the kitchen that I’m not sure have been touched in the past five years. I’m
talking about scrubbing the top of the refrigerator, using all those fancy attachments
of the vacuum to clean the space above your cabinets but below the ceiling, and
I got every last bit of crayon/pen off the front of the cabinets. It felt good –
damn good.
The house is definitely still a work in progress and I have lots
left to do but I’m getting there. In order to avoid the “D” word from being
used again to describe the house I’ve also decided to assign myself chores for
each day. I know, I know, what am I 10 years old and need chores? But yeah, I
think I do. I am a planner and do better with a set schedule. So I’m going to
have a day for mopping, a day for bathroom cleaning, a day for changing sheets,
etc. So if after all of this my husband still thinks that the house is dirty I’m
going to hand over the mop to him (after I punch him in the face).
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| These were my only friends last week |
