Clean Up, Clean Up (If You Feel You Must)

Okay. So my last post was about the memories that can be in the mess. Children can make a large mess of rooms in your home and it may (or may not) drive you crazy. And I must admit, the day after that post, we did get the older kiddo to clean up a bit – even with a bit of our help. Mostly due to the 10 month old crawling all over the place.

So back to the cleaning up idea. I do believe that you don’t need to have a clean house to be happy.  Some mess is totally okay. I’ll admit, before children, I did tend to clean up a bit more and keep the house a bit more tidy. While the mess is a good thing – at least in the playroom – I do get bothered by certain areas that are a mess. For instance, the kitchen. It’s not too hard to clean up – depending on the amount of dishes, right?  Well, usually after cooking or preparing food, I clean up as I go so that there is less after. And wiping down the counter tops is super easy and takes like two minutes. So lately, the kitchen is the cleanest room in the house.

And as mentioned previously, our kitchen table collects everything throughout the week. I try to move things around so that there is more clear space. You know, because it is a table that we eat at. Who wants to sit at a table with an infant car seat on top?  So taking the two minutes to move stuff to new locations, is a piece of cake.  How about our kitchen island? The same thing. I tend to pile certain things on there, including lunch bags, vitamins, water bottles and mail. I do my best to find a new location and move things around. The only thing that won’t really move on the kitchen island are the flowers (or centerpiece) in the middle.

One of the reasons we clean, is to be sure our 10 month old that cruises along on all fours (almost walking!) isn’t in contact with anything he shouldn’t be. I mean, does that always happen, no. He sometimes gets into small toys that aren’t for him to play with, but we are watching him and divert his attention. And vacuuming is something we should do more often too, since our dog seems to shed a ton even though she’s not long haired.

So while cleaning can seem like a chore, and sometimes brings lots of memories, cleaning can also be a really good thing. You can clean it when you want to or when you need to. But sometimes you have to be in a particular mood to clean – I know I do! And when I get in the cleaning mode, sometimes you can’t stop me! At least, it seems that way for a bit. So, while there are so many memories around the house, with the mess, I personally need to keep things picked up a bit more when I can.