Cleaning ~ exercise of futility

I used to love to clean.  I'd start one room at a time and work from one corner to the next.  I loved the satisfaction of the chemical smell and clean lines....and then we had kids.

At first I used to think I could beat them at avoiding the messes.  I once spent a weekend with my sister and watched how she followed her kids from room to room picking up after each thing they played with.  I was exhausted just watching.

She also keeps all of her juice boxes organized in the fridge by flavor and facing the same direction and other crazy things like same color towels stacked together in the linen closet.  I was going to need a different strategy

It kind of made me want to give up and more and more I justified that I couldn't possibly own my own business, have a 100 lb indoor/outdoor dog, two kids and a back yard incapable of growing grass (mostly because we didn't ever water the grass we planted) and manage to keep clean floors.  It's bad enough our dog sheds a full body of hair everyday and I HAVE to vacuum that.  Nothing says squalor more than white hair balls along every floor board and piece of furniture.  I thought it was purely a matter of time that I didn't have.

When I sold my business I developed an inflated sense of confidence on my soon to be spotless palace.  The time I spent working could now be spent cleaning ~ HA!

Here's how yesterday went:
I stripped the beds and less than four hours later my son wet the bed during his nap and managed to get pee on the comforter, sheets and pillows! I was worse off than when I started.

I mopped the floors and while I was mopping my daughter was playing quietly at the bottom of our porch steps pulverizing a Costco size box of sidewalk chalk that immediately got tracked inside.  She then went and sat on the couch while I was re-wiping the floors.  Did I mention it had rained and that wet side walk chalk is more like clay and not so easy to dust off.

I cleaned and scrubbed every bathroom enough to make my mom proud.  My daughter decided to brush her teeth beginning with Agent Blue (bright blue pre-rinse to help your kids brush better by watching the blue disappear).  She spit it out with the vigor of projectile vomit onto the mirrors, walls, light fixtures, floor and a believe a little bit got into the sink.

I cleaned my daughters room while she was at school and returned it to the peaceful organized room that I love more than any other room in the house.  It reminds me of her childhood innocence...which is ironic considering what happened next.  She came home from school and threw an atomic bomb size temper tantrum because I wouldn't let her have a juice box.  She was sent to her room to continue her ridiculous rants and she proceeded to unmake her bed, empty her bookshelves onto the floor, empty her drawers and threw apart the dollhouse I had just found all of the pieces for.

So after a day of cleaning, my house is still in shambles and I never got that moment of quiet pride that is supposed to come with the over whelming smell of chemicals permeating through the air.  My house looks more like it got a "perfume shower".

I'm taking today off.