Being Uncomfortable

I've gotten to a certain age where I'm pretty stuck in my routine. I mean, it's pretty easy seeing as I have young children, and children, as they say, are creatures of routine. Happy kids have a routine. We wake up and have breakfast (usually my awesome 7 ingredient oatmeal which my husband is only so happy to help me replicate on days when I do not want to get out of bed), play games or just chill for a bit. Then we do some sort of activity (if it's not the bone-chilling -18 out as it is today, we usually play in the snow) or go to the store for groceries (and coffee). Lunch, followed by nap, then calm after-nap activities, and then something before dinner (either outside, going to grandma's house, or the store depending on what we did earlier). After dinner we do some physical activity involving walking (usually at the mall since it gets dark at 5:30 still), then bath, books, and bed. Bed is always around 7:30-8, wake up is usually between 7:30-8. A very planned out life (or at least the bones of the day are very structured and don't usually get moved).

Unfortunately, this level of life routine has got me stuck in a personal rut. I do the same thing everyday. When the boys are in bed, I would go watch some tv while knitting (or folding laundry), and be in bed by 10. Not much wiggle room, considering the 8 pm bedtime can often slowly leech into 9, as kids want sips of water, or another story, etc. This hour is golden. I don't want to do anything except what I want to do. I've guarded it closely. And it has become a rut. There are so many things I could do in the evening but I want to be lazy.

It's a bit like an analogy I saw in a magazine about clutter (stay with me for a minute, it'll make sense)- by setting down an object, be it mail, random items, laundry, whatever on the areas where things congregate, you are saying that your time now is more important than your time later. You are robbing yourself of that time freedom later. If you had decided to take the extra minute to put the bill where it needs to go (or heaven forbid actually pay it), put the socks away, put the toys in the appropriate bins, books on the appropriate shelves, you wouldn't need to spend the time later to do it. Think of it- if every time you set something down, you decided to put it in it's right home- you would have clean counters. You would have time where you didn't have to sigh about the counters and then spend 45 minutes trying to figure out where stuff goes, what to do with it. Or if you have a spot where laundry piles up- you take off your work clothes and something isn't dirty so you don't need to throw it in the bin, and you are just too lazy to hang it up or find a cupboard for it. This is my life (except I don't work). If you take the extra minute to hang it, fold it, put it away, you wouldn't have the mound of shame looking at you while you are surfing netflix.
So going back to my evenings- I am robbing myself of life. I just want to veg out and be lazy, be by myself, and I need to start doing things. Now see, things make me uncomfortable. I like to do my routine. It's ingrained, it's automatic, and it's comfortable.
I wrote that I took up running (and I will re-take it up once it's safe to run outside again). I have decided to take up yoga as well. I tried yoga once when I was in undergrad; my friend Holy and I went and it was so boring. I was not zen at all. I would try to hold my poses longer than other people, I couldn't zone out. But I guess something has changed in 13 years.

One- I have no flexibility at all. Ow. Man it hurts to work those areas that enjoy sitting on the couch eating Ben & Jerry's. Two- I don't mind it so much. Granted, I still want to be the best at things, but I'm working on quieting the voices. I need to be gentle with myself. I can't be awesome at everything from the get go. Sure would be sweet if I was, but it's just not going to happen. It's ok to be uncomfortable. I laughed last night at class as I'm trying to stand on one foot and do some sort of squat pose. It's uncomfortable to be the baby, learning for the first time. It also puts me in a better space to teach my children. I get upset when I ask them to do something for like the hundredth time and they can't. It is teaching me to have patience with the growing process, to help my children navigate the uncomfortable learning areas, and to show them that they can always be growing, always learning, always changing.

I'm very uncomfortable, but I'm starting to be more zen about it.

How to: Get your Home Clean(er)

Pre-germaphobia, I was pretty messy.

Messy may be an understatement- just ask my mom. When I lived at home, she would always shut my door when she had guests. It was embarrassing. I didn't care much. It's not like it was dirty per se, more messy. Stuff everywhere. When my mom got rid of the encyclopedias to get new ones, I took the old ones and put them in my closet. Cuz you never know when you need to look something up. Encyclopedia- this means google before google was invented, for all of you kids.
Flash forward to parenthood, where I gave exactly two craps about the state of my house. Now it was dirty too, well at least dirty dishes. I knew someone who cloth-diapered and they would remove the kid's diaper and throw it towards the hamper pile of cloth diapers and cloth wipes, wipe diaper cream on the kid's butt with their hand, and then go about their business, dirty cloth diapers near a giant pile of dirty cloth diapers in the middle of their living room, butt cream on their hands. That's dirty. Mine was more like toys everywhere, clothes everywhere, crumbs everywhere, and piles of dirty dishes.
When I found a job, we hired a babysitter to cover the gap time between when I went to work and when my husband came home, generally never more than 4 hours. We hired her with the mindset to entertain and play with the boys, and to not clean. This was probably the ideal job, since we were paying her $10 an hour to play and chase after some kids, while I hear most parents want the nanny to cook and clean and on and on. So our house was a pit (to the degree my mom told me I should apologize about the state of the house every time she came over) but I didn't care. And then came the sickening when my fragile concept of childhood illnesses was realized and the anxiety stepped in.
So now I have a very clean house. Granted, there are still signs that children live here. Like right now, there is a pile of giant bubble wrap on the living room floor. There is an empty wrapping paper tube that has been brandished as an instrument of pain-infliction, and I see a sock under the couch. But for the most part, tidy. How do I keep it tidy? How can you start an adventure of tidiness? It's not that hard. You definitely don't need to shoot for anal retentive as I have. But to have a house that is clean enough you don't mind if a friend stops by, your inlaws, or even the mailman, that would be ideal.

HOW TO:
Have a tidy house

First, learn this mantra: It is up to me. I have mentioned this before, but my rude awakening of parenthood came when I realized that it was up to me. That toilet paper scrap on the bathroom floor would only be picked up by me. The grape that is under the cabinets by the sink would only get picked up by me. That sock laying under the couch will only be picked up by me. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones that has a husband that enjoys helping around the house, or at least has a strong sense of guilt. Mine has neither. And seeing as how he lets me stay home (for the moment), I try to do all the other crap. And also- news alert- men and women have different standards of cleanliness. My husband will "do the dishes" by placing whatever in the dishwasher that he can without too much thought, run the thing, and leave the kitchen. I am strategic to get all the dishes in before I run the dishwasher, put the leftovers away, and then I wipe up the counters, the dining room table and high chair, clean the high chair tray, clean out the sink. That to me is cleaning up after dinner. My husband has stated that I don't need to fold his laundry and should just cram it in the drawers or heap it in the closet. Like I said- different standards. and because of these standards, I know that if I want my husband to go to work and not look homeless, I have to fold his laundry. If I want my jeans to stay the right size, I need to do the laundry (surprisingly, men, hot is not a good setting for all clothes).

Second, work smarter.
There is always a way to do something that will save you hassle. The trick is to figure out what you want to do and how you can best achieve it. For example, if I am doing laundry (which involves a trip to the basement), I make sure to take down things that live down there. The boys are always dragging toys from the basement up, and there are certain ones that are just basement toys (it will save you trouble to designate certain toys to certain areas). I know when I'm heading downstairs and I see imaginext toys on the floor, to grab a few and toss them in the basket. When I get downstairs, I unload them and start my wash. On the way back up, I grab empty glasses, spoons, trash, whatever I can quickly see on my path back upstairs. Why would I make special trips to the basement to sort and clean when I can just do it as I go? I have a little counter space by the basement stairs where I also place things that live downstairs (like my husband's tools, stuff that needs to go in the pantry) to grab for trips downstairs. When I have to go pee, I check the kitchen counter for hair clips, socks, loose toys, to place them in the appropriate room on the way there. Sure, it takes me an extra minute to get done what I need to get done, but it saves my sanity. And it goes back to my first rile- it's up to me.

Three, get storage.
We have a man cave (furnace room with storage room off the side) that had built-in shelves. I bought bins and a label maker, and what a smart decision that was. If you have more than one child, this will save you trouble. After baby #1 grew out of 0-6 month clothes, into a bin they went with a 0-6 month label. Maternity clothes met a similar fate. Clothes that I sized out of while pregnant, clothes my husband sized out of while I was pregnant, all went into labeled bins. Winter coats and boots, etc. Saves so much time. I then got bins for the boys toys. Many sized bins, and see-thru- VERY important that they are see-thru. Like kind items, such as legos, dinosaurs, trains, all have their own bin. I need a better storage system for them at the moment, but they are stacked up behind a baby gate so they can't be completely dismembered. When we are playing downstairs, we get out a project, like trains, and play. When we are done, in theory, the toys go back in the bin and order is restored. I have bins in my youngest's room, for smaller items and ones that don't group together as well. These are the "toy" bins. If we are upstairs and the boys want a toy to play with, we head in there and they get to pick a couple to play with for the day. Eventually they end up on the bookcase in the living room or on the floor, and I eventually herd them back into their bin.

Four, have spaces for things to live.
Be realistic. You can clean and you can put away, but there is realistically no way you can keep everything packed up and clean and tidy at all times. Especially if you have kids. So you need places for things that you use to live when they are out. Because the floor or the couch or the counter is a terrible spot for things to just hang out. We have a low bookcase in the living room that I actually bought from Urban Outfitters when they were re-doing their displays. It was $15. Can't beat that. THe boys know thats where they put their toys. That is the home of stuff.

Five, cut yourself some slack.
You are only human. Have some time to sit.

The Inevitable

I have been lulled into a false sense of ease.
My complacency got the best of me.

Last night when I returned home from cleaning (which is bound to happen when you own a cleaning business), I asked my husband down the boys had gone to bed.
And the inevitable had happened.

My baby has learned to climb out of his crib.

UUGGGHHHHHH

When this happened with my eldest, the very next day we got a toddler bed and set him up (and then we learned that he cannot be contained by a toddler bed, so we threw a couple of twin mattresses on the floor for maximum sprawling pleasure). It was a steep learning curve, but within a week he was a big boy in a big boy bed.

So I had to face some of my fears.
Namely, sharing a closet with my husband.
Even more so, cleaning out aforementioned side of the closet that may or may not have been where scarves go to die.

Yeah, only about 50 scarves. No hoarding going on here, nothing to see.

During nap time, I attacked the closet like a madwoman, and was able to clear up a spot for my husband's stuff, while packing 3 bins for storage (1.5 of purses, .5 of winter scarves, 1 of sweaters), stuffing a bag to try to sell at resale, and 1 for donations. And I still have a mountain of scarves on my bed, as I have yet to decide their fate.

But I have made some progress!

Please ignore the reflection of my terribly trashed room. Pretend you can't see it. I know I do.

Now to figure out how to get the boys to sleep. The crib is in the diaper room, ie where we do diaper changes. Both boys are still in diapers (yeah he's almost 4, lay off, I'm exhausted) so the diaper changing table is key. There is an old dresser for my husband's clothes, and much stuff on hangers in the closet (which has no door on it). A small child cannot be left to his own devices in that room, as many of these objects can be climbed, pulled over on oneself, or used to murder/cause bodily harm. The boys could sleep together in one room, and the room that the crib is in is the larger room, so it would make sense to relocate the two twin mattresses to that room. There is just soooo much work to make that room safe. My husband would disagree but then again he would let a fairly tame monkey watch them, so he is not the arbiter of sense.

All I know is, since he can climb, the boy is climbing.

It's inevitable. Fish gotta swim, boys gotta climb.

Method to the Madness

See, I didn't start out as a cleaner. I am sloppy by nature. As a kid, when my mom had friends over she would shut my door so as to avoid embarrassment. I just didn't care. Same in college- I'd drag home my laundry over break that I had been saving up for weeks. But things have changed out of necessity. If I were to avoid laundry altogether for a week, I would have over 8 loads. Now the cleaning happens because I am the sole cleaner. And also the mild ocd anxiety issues I have about cleaning. But as I have said before, I am QUITE lazy. Whatever I do, I must be efficient and quick. I clean the bathroom twice a week, but I'm only in there maybe 15 minutes. And this is a full clean, a full top to bottom scrubbing the floors clean. Granted I have a tiny closet-sized bathroom.

I start after bedtime. Whoever goes to the bathroom last (usually my oldest), I'll spray the bowl with cleaner after the flush. Then I pull all hand towels, get one wet, and use the wet side to wipe down the mirror, and the dry side to wipe it off. I'll throw those in the hallway, along with any towels. I shake out the bath rug, and hang that over the shower curtain rod. I'll spray down the bathtub (start at the bottom, with the drain, faucet, sides, working your way up to you don't get cleaner raining down on you. I'll then spray the sink and sides of the sink. After that, I can either go finish up with bedtime, or if kids are asleep, I'll go back with my dish gloves. Dish gloves are my Godsend. Mine are nonlatex and have a cotton lining. Fab. I scrub the toilet bowl first, in case some of it sprays off toward the floors. I then spray the toilet bowl edge and underside of the seat, wipe, spray the top of the seat and back of the lid, wipe, and then top of the tank, handle, and top of the lid and wipe. I am super unecofriendly and I use toilet paper for this toilet clean, mostly so I don't have a dirty rag to worry about. I am conscious of how much tp I use, so it's not exorbitant. Then I clean the sink, then the bathtub. I start with the top working my way to the bottom. Now comes the floor scrubbing. I spray the floor closest to the door (sometimes the walls and baseboards around them if they are dusty or dirty- usually the bottom foot of the wall or less) and wipe up. I use the same rag I used for the sink and shower, just much rinsing in hot water. If you don't clean often, maybe you should use separate rags for each section. The rag gets rinsed out thoroughly after each pass. I work in small two foot sections, mostly because the floor gets slippery if not completely rinsed. I work my way to the tub, then to the sink, and finally to the toilet. I wipe the walls first (do this one day with a white washcloth and you will never look at your toilet the same way), then the sides of the toilet, and finally the base and the floor. I rinse the rag a lot, and when I'm all done with the floor around the toilet, I'm done with the rag. That goes in the laundry. I wash my gloves off, turn on the shower to rinse everything down the drain, and job over. 

I can do this in a quick fashion, especially since I do it twice a week. Some woman on the internets was saying how you shouldn't use water when cleaning. I don't know how I feel about that.

Anyway, I've learned if you set up a method for your cleaning, a schedule per se, you will get done so much quicker, and if you clean regularly, you'll find your cleaning sessions greatly shortened in time. 

For example, cleaning your toys, etc that can be bleached. Most people do this like twice a year maybe, or only after a sickness, right? I try to do it once a month, usually on a Sunday. Sunday tends to be my cleaning day. I wait until all of my dishes are done and after bedtime, as I don't have to worry about my sink being off limits. Then I just throw all the toys that won't be harmed by water into the sink and dump a cup or so of bleach in. Then I just let it sit overnight usually, and drain it in the morning. Be sure to use a white towel or one you don't care about, since even after rinsing, some bleaching of the towel will occur.

Also once a week, when I run out of my cleaning solution, I will make up two spray bottles. I just added a bottle with a bleach solution to my arsenal, so we shall see how useful it will become.

If you try to make certain cleaning practices into habits, your house will look cleaner and you'll get quicker. Have you ever had a kid who had the stomach flu, or had it yourself? It's horrible. You will do anything to avoid it, and afterward you clean like it's your job and rent is due. I feel- why clean after it happens? Maybe cleaning beforehand like you are cleaning up after will prevent it from happening at all. 

But I could be wrong. Call me crazy.

Clearing the Air

Let me start by saying that if you told me a year ago that I would be giving tips on cleaning, I would have laughed. Or smacked you. That just wasn’t my bag.

Before I had kids, I had a friend that I thought was the quintessential mom. She had her poop in a group, was doing everything naturally and organically, yada yada, and her house was a pit. She was really my first friend to have kids, and so I didn’t really question it. When I had kids, I was the same me- messy, cluttered, LAZY- but with two crying diaper-soiling machines to help further the cause. When I had friends over (and I use the word “when” to mean “never” as in I never had friends over) I would wave away the mess. “You understand,” I would apologize. And for the most part, people would understand a bit. I didn’t see the stacks of dishes or the trash and toys everywhere; I saw happy kids who got played with and loved.

When I started work about a year ago, same deal. Fast forward to about six months ago when things started getting stressful. There were some major issues going on at work that whoopsie daisy spilled into my home life. I was at stress level red all the time, worried about my kids getting sick. I went to my doctor about two months ago because I couldn’t stop stressing, and cleaning obsessively. She wisely told me that I was channeling my anxiety into something that I could “fix”. I couldn’t change the swirling vortex of insanity in my life, but I could clean the daylights out of my house. That insight definitely helped me step down off my soapbox filled with Lysol, and I eventually took a hard look at my life and decided the stress of the job was too much for me.

Fast forward to everything being peachy keen. Nope. Still a bit anxious, as this was all less than a week ago. However, I’m not going to let my house get back to where it was pre-freak-out. I realize that my house can be a source of pride (I know, body-snatchers have taken the old me away. It’s a very strange feeling, I assure you). I like knowing that if my kids come down with the pukes again, it is not because of the cleanliness of my house, and I can give the stink eye to the kid’s museum or their cousins or whichever viral incubus they were subjected to. So looooong story short (and way too much TMI but that’s what my life is- one big overshare) I am a wealth of cleaning knowledge. Or at least a well-oiled machine of cleaning proportions, as I am not one to spend hours upon hours, just minutes here and minutes there.

My recipe for all-purpose cleaner

Backstory- I had Mrs. Meyer’s All Purpose cleaner, which I am a big fan of. It smells great, seemed to do the job, but when you are in FREAKOUT mode, you need something more to add to the mix to make sure you have your bases covered. I used Lemon Verbana, so I can’t speak to how well the scents will mingle if you use another flavor. I have tried others, really enjoyed Clementine I think it was, until I got pregnant and had morning sickness. The smell of Clementine reminds me of that and is in the back of the cupboard and will never be used again. Much like that first liquor you overdo, you can’t go back. Impossible.

I have a big ol’ spray bottle. I got it on Amazon. You could use any sort of spray bottle. I suggest one that hasn’t been used for anything else, especially something soapy. Could be an issue- just saying.

I eyeball the portions, and some days I switch it up a bit, but for the most part:

1/10^th of the bottle filled with Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day Lemon Verbana All-Purpose

1/10^th Thieves Oil Household Cleaner (whether or not you believe in the mumbo jumbo of essential oils, etc, they do leave a nice smell- and when you are a nut about germs, you can use all the mumbo jumbo you can get)

Fill to about half with vinegar. Depending how much of the other two ingredients you have used, it may be more or less vinegar. If you want to put in half a bottle of vinegar and then add the other portions, go ahead. Sometimes I use a whole lot of vinegar.

Fill the rest of the container with hot water. Just shake the spray bottle before you use it and apply liberally (disclaimer- I read online (thanks Google) that vinegar shouldn’t be used on marble. I don’t need to worry about that as I am a commoner and won’t ever be able to afford marble. If you have marble you probably shouldn’t use vinegar on it. Or instruct your cleaning lady not to use vinegar.). I use the spray on my counters, flat-top stove, microwave, windows, and on our wood dining room table. It seems to strip the varnish off of the chairs, but the whole set we got for $75 from a local thrift shop, so the varnish could probably stand to be stripped. If this isn’t your idea of a good time, test it first.

Does it leave a vinegar smell? For a bit. I like to think that’s the smell of a clean house. My mom came over after I had cleaned the other day and said she smelled a hint of cloves, which I believe is from the Thieves Oil. She didn’t say anything about hint of vinegar, so I have a feeling that dissipates rather quickly. I have a couple spray bottles and I just fill them both up at the same time. I spray this pretty frequently throughout the day, whenever there is a spill or mess or after meals. It cleans up the highchairs, boosters, appliances. Two thumbs up.