Sometimes I feel like I never stop cleaning, pretty much literally! With a 2 year old boy, a 4 year old girl, an 9 year old girl, and 11 year old girl, and a 13 year old step-daughter, there is much laundry to do, many dishes to do, many spills to clean up, and nothing stays in its place for long. I've been working very hard to try and stay on top of it. I finally made it out to the garage today to sort clothes. My husband has a rule for me that I must catalog all the items I am going to give away to charity, even if they were given to me, so that we can take the tax deduction. How I long to just load up stuff in the back of the car and drop it off without the cataloging, but my husband does a lot for me, so I suppose I can honor his effort to try and save us a little money in taxes.
My girls really help with the cleaning. In particular, I appreciate my 11 year old. She really takes more than her share. She does the dishes, she takes care of the small outside animals, and she cleans and vacuums the main room floors.
My motto is slowly becoming more "less is more". And I've become a toy nazzi. That is I really limit the toys they have out. Most toys have their own box (cars in one box, potato head in one box, trains in one box, legos in one box). And they can't get out another set of toys till they put that one away. Somehow, onesies and twosies of different sets always seem to get left out somewhere; so that is a challenge.
The hardest thing I find about cleaning is finishing a given area. It's really like I have a block. It's just the hardest thing to do. The thing I do with myself (which I teach my kids to do for themselves) when it comes to cleaning, is "just do the next thing". That works for me. Or the 10 minute dash. Pick up this room really quick without worrying about perfection. Then, move onto something new.
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