Alright. I confess. We have a housekeeper. She comes once a week to save my life. I have an altar dedicated to her with her picture on candles and I would offer her child sacrifices if she demanded it. But, the thing is, I have to clean before she comes. Not clean, per se, just pick up the detritus that my children leave behind. So, I start, as always in E's room, the epicenter of mess. Strangely, he has been so busy this week, that his room isn't its usual chaos. I tidy the closet floor so it can be vacuumed and move on. Then, the kids' bathroom. Of course, I have to flush the toilet, because my children find the lever on the tank a mystery. It's entirely possible that they think pressing this lever will result in calamity, as neither one has ever tried. I also have to rinse the giant globs of toothpaste out of the sink. I am not sure if this is spit out of their mouths and still intact as gel because they do such a poor job of brushing, if this is overage from when they pour on the toothpaste to begin with, or if they just squirt out toothpaste for fun when I am not looking. I generally wipe this out, not at the housekeeper's request, but because it's embarrassingly gross.
Today, I went into S's room and realize that HIS room is going to be the epicenter this week. S has 10,000 Hot Wheels on the floor, making it impossible to navigate in his dark room to the curtains (his light switch no longer controls his light, and my feelings toward electrical wiring in the house are generally fear and panic that a fire will start in the wall, and insidiously start killing us before we even know what's going on so it's not fixed). S's rug is the DMZ, riddled with landmines capable of taking out a full grown human--Legos, Hot Wheels, minute parts to things that when stepped on are so painful, it makes you want to curse and throw every toy your child has away. I turn on the light and begin garaging the Hot Wheels, dissecting the Diego Rescue Lego Center, and immobilizing multiple Jeeps. Grr. There are even Hot Wheels apparently getting detailed inside S's socks. Go figure.
Downstairs is chaos. Last night after TBall, Purim services, and errands, M and I found ourselves at 8 PM, starving with no food to make. There are take out containers, silverware, and glasses all over the coffee table. They are stuck to the glass with whatever stickiness they have on them, and I am revolted. The laundry room, miraculously is clean and tidy (I did ALL the laundry yesterday!). I shove everything else into the dishwasher, turn it on, and hope that it only takes one wash to get everything clean. I've loaded it so full that I suspect the cat's food jar is going to block the jets to the top rack, leaving that nasty mushy formerly-Cinnamon Toast Crunch goop on the bowls. Oh, well. Today we'll pretend we're in a Palmolive ad...and my soap will be "the other brand" that doesn't get things Quite as Clean.
The office has every one of S's new 150 crayons out on the floor. Apparently, there was a mad search for sea green this morning, and it just couldn't be found unless we laid all the crayons out in a row to search. Also, bills and paper crap are piled on high on M's side and leftover birthday crap and "art" projects that haven't found their way to their "special place" are waiting for tonight when I put out the recycling after the kids have gone to bed. God help me if they find it in there!
So, all of this is done even before the goddess of clean arrives at my house. She still has three hours of work to do. If only any one in the house shared my OCD instead of having their own mental disorder: Obsessively, Compulsively Dirty.
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