We had an unprecedented streak of cleanliness lately where the house didnt look like a small band of pirates had pillaged the living room every hour on the hour.
My husband noticed this and remarked when he got home one day, Wow. The house has really stayed clean lately."
Stayed clean.
After recovering from my initial confusion over this statement, I proceeded to explain to my husband that there is no staying clean when you have a toddler son and two daughters who dont understand that using 10 water cups a day is overkill.
My husband meant nothing bad by his comment, but it did give me some insight into how someone who is not a stay-at-home parent could see the day. In his mind, a clean house simply meant we hadnt done much that day or that our son had magically realized its not cool to take every toy out of the toy box three times by noon.
So, for any parents who think nothing happens between when they leave a clean house in the morning and return to a clean house after work, heres a quick peek behind the curtain:
If we have the same number of children at the end of the day as we did in the morning, that means I have literally saved their lives multiple times. I have snatched kids back from running into the street, sprinted across a park to stop a child from falling off the side of the playground and recovered a quarter from a toddlers mouth at least once. If everyone is alive, you can rest assured I have stopped at least one kamikaze flying scissor kick off the kitchen island that day.
If no one is in the hospital with E. coli, its only because I intervened just seconds before our toddler ingested raw chicken from the trash or explained to him that the toilet plunger is not a teething toy.
If there is food in the fridge, it means I pushed a full cart through Costco with one arm and an overtired toddler tucked beneath the other arm. That dinner youre eating? Yeah, I picked all of those ingredients up off the floor when our son jettisoned them from the cart in the checkout line.
If I dont smell like dirt/garbage/bodily fluids of any kind, its because I showered. And if I showered, it means I ran naked and wet through the house at least once to stop the toddler from rubbing lotion into the carpet. Showering also means replying to numerous questions from my daughters that are all variations of why does your body look like that?
And if the house is clean, its because Ive cleaned it. Not once. Not twice. But probably at least 10 times. I clean it after each meal, each playtime and each time a kid decides cutting up tiny pieces of magazines would be an awesome way to complete their book report.
So, next time you come home and look around and think, Wow, the house has really stayed clean lately, maybe take a deeper look. With kids, houses dont stay anything, and the clues are all there if youre really searching for them.
What youll find is that if your home even remotely resembles the structure you left as you headed out for work, there is likely an exhausted co-parent somewhere around who has worked nonstop to make your home a place you want to come home to every day. And if they are anything like me, they could probably use a thank you, a nap and maybe even an audience-free shower.
My husband noticed this and remarked when he got home one day, Wow. The house has really stayed clean lately."
Stayed clean.
After recovering from my initial confusion over this statement, I proceeded to explain to my husband that there is no staying clean when you have a toddler son and two daughters who dont understand that using 10 water cups a day is overkill.
My husband meant nothing bad by his comment, but it did give me some insight into how someone who is not a stay-at-home parent could see the day. In his mind, a clean house simply meant we hadnt done much that day or that our son had magically realized its not cool to take every toy out of the toy box three times by noon.
So, for any parents who think nothing happens between when they leave a clean house in the morning and return to a clean house after work, heres a quick peek behind the curtain:
If we have the same number of children at the end of the day as we did in the morning, that means I have literally saved their lives multiple times. I have snatched kids back from running into the street, sprinted across a park to stop a child from falling off the side of the playground and recovered a quarter from a toddlers mouth at least once. If everyone is alive, you can rest assured I have stopped at least one kamikaze flying scissor kick off the kitchen island that day.
If no one is in the hospital with E. coli, its only because I intervened just seconds before our toddler ingested raw chicken from the trash or explained to him that the toilet plunger is not a teething toy.
If there is food in the fridge, it means I pushed a full cart through Costco with one arm and an overtired toddler tucked beneath the other arm. That dinner youre eating? Yeah, I picked all of those ingredients up off the floor when our son jettisoned them from the cart in the checkout line.
If I dont smell like dirt/garbage/bodily fluids of any kind, its because I showered. And if I showered, it means I ran naked and wet through the house at least once to stop the toddler from rubbing lotion into the carpet. Showering also means replying to numerous questions from my daughters that are all variations of why does your body look like that?
And if the house is clean, its because Ive cleaned it. Not once. Not twice. But probably at least 10 times. I clean it after each meal, each playtime and each time a kid decides cutting up tiny pieces of magazines would be an awesome way to complete their book report.
So, next time you come home and look around and think, Wow, the house has really stayed clean lately, maybe take a deeper look. With kids, houses dont stay anything, and the clues are all there if youre really searching for them.
What youll find is that if your home even remotely resembles the structure you left as you headed out for work, there is likely an exhausted co-parent somewhere around who has worked nonstop to make your home a place you want to come home to every day. And if they are anything like me, they could probably use a thank you, a nap and maybe even an audience-free shower.
