Bathrooms and Bed Sheets...

Before this school year started...I wanted to make sure that we had a schedule for the day to day household chores. With COVID, a new house, 3 out of 4 kids in school (yikes!), doctor visits almost weekly for months on end for the baby, and an upcoming deployment, a messy house would have, most likely, pushed me over the edge into crazy town. As it is, I'm skirting the edges of crazy town on the daily.

I like having a clean home. In my world, cleanliness = sanity. However, as much as I enjoy a clean house, I do not enjoy the hours on end it takes to achieve said cleanliness. As a compromise, I came up with a chore chart that has us (and by us I mean me and the kids, but since they are 13, 6, and 4...it winds up being just me...plus I like the way I do it better) doing one or two specific things each day so the house stays clean throughout the week. In theory.

Since I scrubbed my house top to bottom before company came for Christmas, I've been kind of lax in the routine department. But, since today was Monday, and since it was the 1st of the month, it was like the OCD gods were telling me now was the perfect time to start back on my routine (I like it when things start at the beginning, so the first day of the week AND the first day of the month...I mean come on...if not now, when?) So I began...again.

Monday is bathrooms and bed sheets day. As you can mostly likely discern from my clever titling, today is the day that we clean the bathrooms and wash our bed sheets. Shocker. But, I like a good alliteration, what can I say.

I drop my 1st grader at school around 8:20am. My Pre-k'er doesn't need to be dropped off until 11:30am, so I had a good amount of time to get my cleaning done and out of the way. Also in my world, if it doesn't get done before lunch, it probably won't get done at all (this goes for cleaning, workouts, errands, pretty much any adult thing). So, bed sheets were stripped first and thrown in the wash. In addition to bed sheets, I also wash shower curtains and the bathroom rugs the 1st of the month. So those were stripped as well and tossed into the line of fire...or would it be water...since they were being washed? Hmmm...

Anyway...I windexed, sprayed, wiped, washed, vacuumed, mopped every surface of our 2 1/2 bathrooms. I won't say you could eat off the surfaces because...gross...but everything shined and didn't smell like pee. If you have boys...you know the pee smell I'm talking about.

Sheets were tossed from washer to dryer in the midst of all that cleaning chaos (there's that alliteration again) and placed back on beds when they were dry. Even if my children's beds are never made the rest of the week, at least they know when they crawl into bed Monday nights, that they have clean sheets and blankets to snuggle into.

Does everything on my "list" get done exactly on the day it should? No. Are there times where, despite my efforts to the contrary, that my house looks exactly like you think a house where 4 active children live would look? Yes, of course. My mom told me one time while she was visiting, and I was busy cleaning and organizing, that I should just relax; that it's okay to have stuff around, that my house is lived in and one day I'll miss all of this. And she's right. I know she is. Some day, I'll miss the scatter of toys. I'll miss clothes thrown about at bath time because my two middle ones love doing 'nakey run' before getting in the tub. I know I'll miss all of it. Maybe not the pee smell...but everything else.

But I also explained to her that, while I get that my house will never be perfect, it's what I can control. There is so much in my life that is out of my hands. My husband being gone for who knows how long, for one. He literally gave me a 4 month window of possible return dates. That's 122 options of days he could be coming home. I know it's all he has right now to give me in the information department...but come on. My daughter's health is another. She is healthy, she is finally gaining weight, she finally (now that she is somewhat round-ish in shape) rolled over for the first time (there are some developmental concerns but fingers are crossed that she is just on her own schedule). But despite tests and doctor visits, she still needs a tube to eat...and no one can tell me why.

Dealing with a teenager is another uncontrollable event...need I say more on that one? Virtual school and having to be in and out of the house 4 times a day just between pick up and drop offs for my two middle children (thank goodness my oldest is able to take the bus the two days a week he goes). And, just COVID in general and the never-ending ball of fun that ride has been. I know I'm not the only one dealing with a similar schedule, or the feeling of utter helplessness when it comes to being able to actually have a say in how your life goes on the day to day.

My house, however, is in my control. I have complete control over what goes on, where things are put, how my house looks and smells. All of the tiny little details which contribute to my sense of order, and therefore my sense of calm. If I can look around my house and see organization, I can be okay. I can deal with the 122 days of possibilities from my husband and tell him, honestly, that when he gets back he gets back. I can handle the in and out of running my kids to school and picking them up (while taking an hour in between at the track for myself). I can handle the doctor appointments, the weekly errands, the unexpected errands, and everything in between.

Because, at the end of every night, everything is in its place. At the end of every night, my children are clean and happy, and every night, they slide in to clean sheets and cuddle up with their clean blankets. Every night, after I kiss them goodnight, I can come downstairs and see organization and not chaos. I see cleanliness and not clutter. In a world that, for lack of a better term, is crazy in so many aspects...my house is my place to block out the crazy, and I block it out one chore at a time.