Clean Up, Clean Up...

Everybody, Everywhere! In the past few months I've been trying to implement several new strategies to be a better mother and more efficient housekeeper. I find that one of the hardest things about being a stay-at-home mom is balancing my chores with time with my children. If I'm cleaning I feel guilty about not being on the floor building block towers with my munchkins. When we're in the toy room I'm constantly thinking about the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. So what to do?

I started by re-doing my chore chart. I'm a bit obsessive when it comes to cleaning my house (who else do you know who uses a toothbrush to clean window tracks?) but I have come to realize that I just don't have the time to as thorough as I'd like. My house is just too big. (Side note: don't buy a two-story, three bath house until your kids are old enough to clean it for you!) So I had to give myself a break. Instead of doing my chores on a weekly basis, I'm now doing then on a two week cycle. It chaffes to think that my bathrooms are only being cleaned every other week, but in reality, it's happening more often now than it was before. I'm no longer stressed by the huge workload in front of me. I have one or two things that have to be done on a given day and everything else can just wait its turn.

And to reduce the guilt while cleaning, I started trying to get my chores done while Handsome Face was in bed. It's just easier. Cute Girl has started to help too. This takes patience. Her "helping" usually justs drags the work out and she sometimes contributes to the mess more than reduces it, but we're developing patience. I keep telling myself that. I know that it's important to allow her to help while she's young and wants to do chores because it fosters independence and teaches responsibility and skills. And sure enough, she actually is doing a better job at washing dishes. I hardly have to go over them at all.

And we're spending time together. I try not to focus on the job-at-hand too much so that I can ask her questions and see what she thinks about things. Or I try to sing Primary songs. Anything so that our time is quality time. I'm not too good at this yet - I'm still driven to get the job done and I forget to engage her in conversation. But again, we're working on it.

But we have seen benefits. Aside from Cute Girl becoming more adept at washing dishes, she's also learned to love doing it. We had a Family Home Eveing lesson on work and who had what responsibilies in the house and how working together makes jobs fun. Since then, whenever we do chores together she pauses and asks, "Mom, is this work?" And that opens up opportunities to review our work lesson.

And on one last note, yesterday I asked her if she wanted to go play in the toy room or clean the bathroom. She opted for the bathroom. Go figure.