Spring Cleaning

One of Max's favorite things to do is to beg us for a bite of our food, then promptly spit it out on the ground. He'll even do it when you least expect it, like if you give him cake, or ice cream, or something equally delicious. So, you put the baby down for a nap and have to get on your hands and knees to wipe up the mess.

That's when you realize that the rocking chair in the living room is dusty! So, so dusty! The weird wooden rails underneath the seat that you never even think of? Yeah, those need to be dusted off, right away.

Once you are done dusting the weird railing of the rocking chair, you look up and notice that the blades of the living room fan are also dusty. So, so dusty! So you sigh, grab your step stool and dust each and every blade. And while you're dusting, little globs of gray dust fall to the floor. Soooo....

You grab the broom and sweep, sweep, sweep. The whole entire house! But stuff keeps getting under the couches. So you move the couches out of the way and discover a treasure trove of toys. Action figures, mega bloks, an old sippy cup, a quarter (Score! See, cleaning does pay). You pick those up and sweep behind the couch when you look down and realize that the base boards are just AWFUL. Soooo....

You get a soapy, wet wash rag and start scrubbing the grime off the base boards. The older boys are asking to play video games. Your voice changes and your head spins as you threaten them, saying you will force them to grab their toothbrushes and help you so GO OUTSIDE NOW. The baby is still sleeping for now.

The baseboards finally look good enough and you put the living room back in order, but on your way to taking the wash rag to the laundry room, you notice the windowsills. OMG THEY ARE SO DUSTY TOO! And what is that black crud? Your family is surely going to get asthma if you don't get rid of that immediately, so you get a new wash rag and the bottle of kitchen bleach cleaner.

By this time, the baby is waking up so you grab him, and change his diaper. You realize that the diaper pail smells like the very pits of hell and must be disinfected NOW. You put the baby back in his crib with some toys and take the diaper pail outside to be bleached to infinity. Two hours have somehow disappeared from your Saturday and you don't know how or why.

It's going to be time to make dinner soon, so you head to your kitchen and grab something out of the freezer to defrost. Except the microwave looks like it belongs in a nightmare office break room. There is ancient, dried on spaghetti sauce splatter on the microwave ceiling, streaks of something sticky on the glass door front and the circular glass plate is a mess.

You spend another 15 minutes cleaning the microwave while you give the baby cheerios and juice and make the big boys take out the trash and clean their rooms.

Your husband finally comes in from taking care of the yard all afternoon and looks like he got into a fight with the lawnmower. He heads to the shower to clean up while you finish wiping down all of the kitchen cabinets. He has left muddy, mowed grass blade footprints through the kitchen and the rage begins to build. You sweep and mop the kitchen AGAIN.

You make a running list in your head of all of the things you still need to take care of; deep clean the grout in the bathroom, sweep the cobwebs off the front porch, dust the AC grills, wash the grease trap over the stove, buy new pillows for everyone. Wash the curtains? Nah, maybe next year.

You are now too tired to make the dinner you intended and dread ruining your freshly cleaned kitchen, so you just order pizza and call it a day.

And that is how we do spring cleaning in our house.

The End.