My home is a wreck.
There, I said it.
During normal times, keeping my house clean and orderly is quite a challenge, and these are anything but normal times.
We’ve been quarantined at home since March. Yes, we’re finally starting to venture out a bit here and there (grandparents’ houses, riding bikes, etc.). Still, we’re basically homebodies. And I do mean bodIES, plural.
There are six of us in this house and four of us are complete slobs young children.
I’m doing my best to teach everyone to pitch in, do chores, and clean up their own messes, but it’s a work in progress to say the very least.
I also try to clean throughout the day, but in case you’re no good at math or ratios, four kids mess a lot faster than one person cleans. Plus, the youngest is only four months-old, so good luck getting him to pull his fair share.
Now, you might think a generally immobile baby wouldn’t be responsible for much mess, but you’d be wrong. That adorable little freeloader baby is the sloppiest of them all!
He projectile pukes over everything, so we’re burning through laundry nonstop and everything smells funky. Plus, there are bottles strewn all over the place like we hosted a raging fraternity party sponsored by Medela.
All this to say: this place is a dump and it stresses me out.
I like things neat and orderly, or at the very least, clean-ish and stink-free-ish (I am raising four boys, so admittedly, standards have lowered over time).
So what am I doing now that the baby is napping and the other three boys are playing in their rooms?
NOT A DARN THING.
I’m staring at the war-zone around me, disgusted by what I see. Yet my butt remains firmly planted on this couch.
Sure, I did pick up a few things before I sat down… but that was like shoveling in the middle of a snowstorm: you can’t even tell.
I’m spent. I’m sleep-deprived. I miss playdates, swim team, teenage babysitters, and all the other things I typically rely on to stay afloat in the summer. I love my kids, but I sure do like peace and quiet — and there’s been precious little of that going around lately.
So today, I’m enjoying the nanoseconds of peace as they come and I’m not squandering them by scrubbing away.
One day my house will be clean (well, that or I’ll become the star of a new A&E series), but today is not that day. Tomorrow isn’t looking too good either.
When this pandemic is behind us and we can freely have guests over once again, friends, please consider this my disclaimer: this place is a hazmat zone and it has nothing to do with a virus.
Enter at your own risk.