This last holiday weekend, I celebrated like the calendar said I should. I truly, truly labored. And not in the ten-centimeters-you-can-push-oh-jesus-someone-just-hit-me-in-the-head-with-a-hammer-and-get-it-over-with kind of laboring. I did something almost as crazy.
I spent almost all of my free time cleaning my house.
No, I didn't have a fever. No, I didn't lose a bet.
In the spirit of wanting my home life to go smoother, and less stress on my kids, I decided to follow a columnist's advice about organization. I wanted to do my part in making sure things were organized so we weren't doing the typical school morning chaotic dash:
"Mom, did you sign my permission slip?"
"Where's my sports physical form?"
"Who hid my backpack/gym shoes/jacket?"
"Isn't today my field trip? If so, I need a check for $15."
And one of my favorites - as I'm dropping them off at school: "Oh, I forgot to tell you. Today's my special day and I need a snack for 25 kids. No dairy or peanuts because someone has food allergies."
And in full disclosure... I have never been good at housework. I hate cleaning. My room was so messy when I was a kid that my dad used to take the door off the hinges. There I would stand, in the middle of my messy bedroom, with no door to hide my adolescent shame.
My brother would saunter by and snicker.
"Shut up!" I'd tell him. "At least my room doesn't smell like farts."
"You sure about that?" he'd ask, raising an eyebrow.
One time we had a small fire in our garage and the fire department showed up. One of the fire fighters said he had to check out the bedroom above the garage, to make sure there were no more flames or damage. I raced past him up to my bedroom and shoved everything I could into my closet. He walked in and promptly announced he needed to check the closet. After a brief tug on the closet door handle, he flung it open.
A small avalanche of clothes, school supplies and other miscellaneous teenage crap came tumbling out and covered his boots. Once he determined there was no burning fire remaining in the walls, he turned around and to walk out of the bedroom.
Unfortunately one of my bras had become firmly clasped on the buckle of his boot. He tried to shake it off, but ended up having to bend over, remove it manually and hand it to me.
"Here," he said. "I believe this is yours."
Um, thanks.
So this weekend I decided to do some major cleaning. I tackled the laundry room first. With four kids, it's a room that sees constant action and lots of turnover. It's like a truck stop rest area...minus the hookers.
I did over a dozen loads of laundry, threw out Tide bottles, organized and wiped down the shelves, swept the floors and even vacuumed the rugs. I found missing video games, clothes that I assumed were long gone, belts and accessories, and almost four dollars in loose change.
I barely recognized the room.
When Sophie arrived home not much later, I told her to check out the laundry room. I was upstairs and told her, "Go downstairs and look at the laundry room. I totally cleaned it."
I heard her open the door and then she yelled upstairs, "Wow, Mom, have we always had rugs in the laundry room??!"
Ah, yes we have.
After that I turned my attention to my son's room. He wanted to document the occasion with before and after pictures that he took with my camera. He knew it was a monumental event.
I'm always a little apprehensive cleaning his room. Boys rooms are different than girls. There are different smells, lots more dirt and mud, and broken toys everywhere. And did I mention the different smells?
I was on the carpet and tossing garbage in a bag. "Why does this corner smell like urine?" I asked him point blank.
"Mom," he replied in his "duh" voice. "My sisters dared me."
Jesus...do I need to put a bulls-eye target in the toilet bowl? It shouldn't be such a difficult thing to do.
But after a couple hours his room was clean. I periodically walked in and out of it, just relishing the sight of it. I know it won't stay that way forever.
After my industrious laundry and bedroom cleaning, I thought I could enjoy the rest of the weekend at my leisure. Oh no. My parents showed up on Monday and announced they were going to help me clean my garage.
Oh goody.
I'm actually glad they did. I would have become a great grandmother before I would have attempted to clean that garage myself.
So on Labor Day, for approximately 7 hours, I worked on cleaning that garage with them. I had no idea I owned so much crap. By the time they left and I was ready for bed, I collapsed on the couch. I smelled like Windex and arm pits. Not the sexiest combination.
But hey... things were now clean(er).
I do really like the way things look when I don't have to remove a bean bag chair out of the way to appreciate the view. I wish they would stay that way longer.
I need to do better. I will try to do better.
Because I don't want to spend another Labor Day laboring.
When we were done with the garage, covered in sweat and dust, my mom took a look around and said, "Yep, as my dad Clint would say - We cut a big ol' hog in the ass today, didn't we?"
Spoken like a true German farmer.
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