Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Housekeeping for Working Moms 101

Ahhhh, the life of a working mom. Up at 5:30am. Shower. Let the dogs out. Get myself ready. Wake my son. Get my son ready. Feed and lock up dogs. Run through my mental checklist of everything we need. Out the door. Drop off David at school. Get to work. Begin my 2nd job of teaching school. And that's all by 7am! Needless to say, housekeeping is not my favorite pasttime. By the time I end my day, I don't have the energy or motivation to do any kind of tidying, picking up, cleaning, washing, or otherwise. Thank God for the cleaning lady! She is worth her weight in gold to come every other week to do the deep cleaning. Now I do have to break down and do some cleaning in between. Especially with a toddler, a husband, and two canines, my house needs more TLC than any well-intentioned maid or weary mom can provide.

So, tonight, after teaching all day, picking up David from school, feeding, bathing, and bedding the little tike, the last thing this working mom wanted to do was pick up the remnants of a toy yielding toddler. So, my solution to making my home appear less like a war zone was the following: 1) use my feet to "sweep" the toys into one pile near the toy cubbies, 2) move seemingly previously organized piles of miscellaneous items around to look neater, 3) throw away a few items obviously destined for the garbage, 4) rewash the load of laundry sadly forgotten about and left in the washer overnight, and 5) put rewashed items in the dryer and wash another load of laundry in order to rid the floor of one more pile of clothes. Rome wasn't built in a day, how can I be expected to clean up this place in an evening?

Some may think it's laziness, but I'm a working mom, people...gimme a break!

2 comments:

  1. I only work 2 mornings a week and can't get it all done! I have been trying to be better about always having an empty sink (actually unloading the dishwasher to load the dirty dishes) and I have been doing one load of laundry a day. That helps. I am trying to be organized, though. You do a great job I am sure. Hang in there. Who said you are supposed to build Rome anyway?

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  2. So glad you have a cleaning lady. When I was full time, that was such a struggle. Besides, David will never remember how messy or neat the house was, but he will remember his mama playing with him instead of mopping!

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