Clean...sort of.

My idea of what clean is, and even what the ACT of cleaning is, has changed a lot since I had kids.  I am a neat person in some ways, and not so much in other ways.  I like to have order and cleanliness surround me, yet unlike other people I don't necessarily enjoy the process of getting there. 

I used to spend a Saturday morning cleaning.  My husband has always been a helpful guy, but he didn't do a lot of the cleaning before we had children.  We'll get to that some more later on.  When we were first married, however, I did most of the cleaning.  I really didn't mind.  I would go into cleaning mode on a Saturday morning and clean the entire place.  Dusting, vacuuming, mopping...whatever needed to be done was accomplished.  In a manner that harkened back to my childhood days of "having a room assigned to me and checking items off of the list on Saturday morning," I would go through the basement suite, room by room, and sort of "check the chores off of the list."  It was effective, and I could get it all done at one time.  We would then go on our merry way completing whatever thing we had planned for that Saturday.

Now?  We have children.  I enjoy our Saturday mornings MUCH more-but they aren't exactly conducive to cleaning. We wake up when the boys wake up.  Then one of us takes the boys and feeds them breakfast and occupies them for an hour or so while the other "sleeps in"-as much as you can sleep in when you have two rowdy boys in the house-until that hour is up.  Then, the spouse on duty brings the boys in to wake up the other spouse, and half an hour or more of playtime in the bedroom commences.  We play in the cave, we tickle, we tell stories, we wrestle...it is MUCH more fun than cleaning!  We all then dress for the day, brush our teeth, and head out to whatever family activity we have planned.  Fun?  Indeed!  Cleaning done?  No way!

Cleaning now is done in bits.  A floor swept here, a mantel dusted there, it is accomplished somehow!  I don't always have a clean house.  Sometimes I can manage to whirl through an entire room while Kev is playing hockey with the boys in the family room for half an hour.  I might get a burst of energy and wipe down the kitchen-cupboards, floors and all-after the boys are in bed.  Do I clean when they are awake and home?  Rarely. 

I'm okay with this.  I had a friend tell me that when the kids are little, the house is a bit messy, a bit dirty...but memories are made.  She told me that I would have the rest of my life to clean my house.  She was right!  Sometimes it is tough because I function so much better in a house of order...yet I wouldn't trade it.

Another bonus?  I have learned to let go.  I have learned that it is okay if Kevin doesn't fold the towels in exactly the same manner that I would, I am just thankful that they are folded!  (Although he showed TRUE love a few months ago when he suddenly started folding them in the manner that I do!  I was shocked and he said he had been studying my method and learned how to do it, because he knew it would make me happy.  You have to love a man like that!)  He sweeps, he mops, he does dishes, he does laundry-although he always did his, he now does other laundry as well!  It is not completely up to me, and because of that it works.  Our house is rarely a disaster, and sometimes it is even downright clean!

I choose to look at it another way, though.  Our messy, sometimes dirty house is a sign that our boys are loved fully and completely.  That we are choosing to play instead of clean.  That we are sitting down and reading the books instead of scrubbing the floors.  It all gets done, it just doesn't necessarily always get done as it should...and that's okay!