Wednesday, August 31, 2005

If Jon can do it, then so can I!

For those of you that frequent Ziggy Thoughts, no, I'm not referring to peeing in the shower! That's just gross!!! What I am referring to is a rant, a good old-fashioned rant! And for my friend at Mommy Stories, I apologize now because I know this is old news to you. But there are just some things that a certain mommy must get off of her chest, and this, my friends is one of those things.

I absolutely hate cleaning!!! I can't stand the daily chores that stare me down...daily!!! Cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry (absolutely the least favorite thing on the list, by the way!) and the general picking up that is required by any good wife, mother, or general person, are not on the top of the list of "Things I love to do!". Getting a pedicure, massage or just going shopping all by myself - those are the top 3 on that list, but cooking, cleaning, laundry and the other stuff aren't there!!! Of course, the list that I've created is apparently fictitious since I don't actually get to go do any of those things...ok, maybe the occassional pedicure, but that's only once every 3 or 4 months! But, I digress from the matter at hand, which is completing my rant...

So, it is with much pain that I have spent the better part of this day not only dealing with a sick 2 year old little girl, but attempting to conquer the 6 loads of laundry that lay around on my bedroom floor, as well as sweeping & mopping (then crawling around after lunch to get the crumbs) off of the breakfast & kitchen floor. If you could only see these floors, you'd understand my plight. You see, the floors in question are made up of small 5x5 stark white, shiny tiles - not the best choice of tile for a busy family of 5!!! But, since this is a rental house and the floor was already here, I'm forced to deal with it none-the-less. Ok, that said, once I take the hour or more to sweep, then mop the whole darned thing, it kills me to allow anyone to walk on it, much less seeing anyone drop even the tiniest of crumbs on it! So, this is what brings me to the rant in question...my youngest child Ian and my sick little daughter chose to eat the crumbiest things they could possibly think of today at lunch...crackers!!! Can I tell you how painful it was to allow either of them to touch the stupid things??? Of course, I could have just said no to the 2 year old, but after listening to her cry almost non-stop today, allowing her this one small pleasure was a survival tactic on my part. Granted, I don't think I could have stressed enough to her the importance of 'not dropping crumbs all over mommy's clean floors'. Of course, to a 2 year old, this means nothing. I even attempted to teach her (once again) that eating over our plate was the best thing she could possibly do for mommy today! But, again, this didn't seem to mean much to her. So, it was with a heavy heart that I simply walked away from the table and decided not to think about the mess that I would soon find under her chair!

This would explain why I just completed cleaning the floor again - on my hands & knees this time because I just couldn't bear to sweep & mop again!!! I think I've managed to pick up every last crumb, but I'm sure the next time I walk in there, I'll see another one since the stark-white, shiny thing shows every spot! It's only a matter of time before dinner time will be here, and I'll be forced to allow my family to sit at the table, which coincidentally sits on that floor I've been ranting about, to eat their dinner. Anyone have any ideas for a non-crumbly, spill-proof meal?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You just spoke of my arch nemesis. The eeeeeeevil mr. crumb! I like to refer to him as satan's henchman, but my husband just says I'm being dramatic. Now tell me the truth, after spending a day cleaning the house, is it really all that dramatic to curse your children to a lifetime of flea infested eyebrows, when you see them joyfully crushing goldfish in the freshly vacuumed carpet?

BTW...I feel your pain...deeply. ;)

cori said...

We have just learned to embrace our crumbs. Love the mess. Learn to enjoy the feel of it on the bottom of your feet. Because it is not going away until the kids do...and I certainly don't want that to happen any time soon. :)

jon said...

HELPFUL HOUSEHOLD TIP:

When the crumbs get a foot deep, it's time to move into a new house!

There! no more cleaning.

Rabbity-Sniff said...

Floors need swept at least once a day, preferrably after dinner. My mother-in-law has terrible floors! They are filthy. I see her clean up her floors maybe once a week (or is it once a month?). I thought it was just because her son and I have to live with them for a little while. But then she showed me a picture of her house nearly 20 years ago and the floors were horrendous! Even in the picture you could tell they were rarely cleaned (or maybe that's just how they look with four children in the house). At any rate, I can't stand not to clean. I do a very slow but quite thorough job. I don't want strange, moldy things getting into my wee-one's mouths. Yes, I can sympathize with those women who do not like to clean. I happen to like it a bit which I'm finding is to my good fortune. And since we've been living with my in-laws I've often felt like the maid since I thought the cleaning duties would be split between me and my mother-in-law, but I do it all. And no one listens to me when I request that they take off their shoes, or sweep up the floor, or take out the garbage. Yep, I'm the maid but I don't get paid.

Rabbity-Sniff said...

Hey, I guess I did a little teeny-weeny rant of my own there.

Katrina said...

Oh, does this hit home with me! I hate housework, and most especially floors! We, too, have the white linoleum rental floor of doom, but in our case, it's so old that the ground in dirt manages to make the whole thing look grubby even after an hour of scrubbing on my hands and knees (after which I have to fight the urge to lock my family out so they cannot crumb on it.) My husband's feeling is "why bother?" And you know what? I don't know why. But there I am, anyway, on hands and knees, meticulously scrubbing at grey marks that will never come off.

There's a deep, hidden meaning to all this, I know.

As for laundry, don't get me started....

Harleys said...

Okay - here's how I deal with clean floors and lunch. Where my children eat lunch depends on whether I vacuumed the living room or mopped the kitchen most recently. If I've already mopped the kitchen, they eat in the living room, then I vacuum. Hence, I only clean each room once a day - hahahahahahahahaha. I have never vacuumed my living room two days in a row.