Tips Tuesday

I recently read this statement on a blog, "I have SUCH complete respect for women with children that keep good meals on the table and their house spotless....."  Hmmmm...  I hope it was ok that I was highly amused!  I am trying to think of just one mommy that can do this.  No one is coming to mind.  To the wonderful blogger who said this; I say this to you, If you know someone like this - they are probably stuffing crap under the sofa!  I have four kids.  They are 9, 5, 4, and almost 2.  I gave up on the idea of spotless a long time ago.  It. Is. Not. Going. To. Happen. Period.  I have had to lower my standards more than I expected to have to.  But I wanted to remain sane and happy!  I also noticed the times that my house was the absolute cleanest, were the times that my children were left ignored and unattended.  I was constantly up on my feet, moving about, picking up every little piece of lint I saw.  I was continually after the kids to pick up whatever item they dropped.  I was exhausted.  So, spotless was just not going to happen if I wanted a happy life.  Before anyone gets their panties in a twist, if you can do this and be happy, then fine.  I am not talking to you anyway and we are probably not close friends.  ;-)

So, I keep a modestly clean house.   I try to follow Flylady.  (My bossy, opinionated self wants to tell her to shut up, but I resist and dutifully put on my lace up shoes every morning.)  I have chore charts and the kids do a pretty swell job of doing what I ask.  As long as I am not expecting them to make a wrinkle free bed and to not miss a spot with the vacuum, it is clean enough.  Is there dust on my mantle?  Sure, it is under all of my husbands stuff he has piled there.  :) There is also fingerprints from curious hands and nose prints from curious faces on the windows and doors.  There are books in front of the overflowing bookshelves that were happily looked at.  There are a few stray puzzle pieces in front of the puzzle basket that were missed when my 22 month put them away.  One of the kitchen chairs is pulled up to the sink where the baby tried to help wash the dishes last night.

I spoke with Kim, from The Whims Of Kim, last night.  I complained that I worked REALLY hard on the house yesterday morning and it was messy again when we went to bed.  But, this morning I woke up with a different opinion.  We worked hard, played hard, and had time for lots of hugs and kisses.  It was a great day, even with a sick child.  We took time to learn that 7 wants to be a 10 in our math lesson.  We learned that the world was a different place in the book, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.  But mostly we learned about hard work, and not taking things for granted.

So my "tip' for you on this Tips For Tuesday - Keep it safe, keep it basically clean but, don't sweat about the dust.  If all the puzzle pieces don't get put away before bed, or the books lay on the floor in front of the bookcase, it is ok.  There is no long term or eternal consequence.  There will be lots of time to clean the house when the kids are bigger.  The rewards from time spent with the children far outweigh the satisfaction that comes with lack of dust. 


Here is the sweet blog post I referred to earlier.  Go link up if you have housekeeping tips!