Pink Roses II: Life, with children...

Two days ago, I made a post about the difference a vase of flowers made in my housekeeping. The beautiful pink roses are still standing next to me and making me smile. However, I vowed several times that in this blog I would be honest about the realities of homemaking and motherhood.
Quite often in the past I've visited wonderful homemaking blogs and come out feeling inspired but also hopelessly inadequate and doomed to failure, because I never would be able to get it all together and do all these wonderful projects like those women did. Their children never seemed to throw tantrums, their house never seemed a mess, and there always was a crockpot with something delicious on, so they never... ever... stood frazzled before the freezer and decided that they could get away with pizza this evening. And if they did, it would be homemade, wholesome, whole wheat pizza dough of course, with toppings layed out in a shape that portrayed the liturgical season or their current bible reading or homeschool project.

In the few years that I have been a wife and mother I have learned that life simply does not work that way. These women DO all these wonderful projects and I commend them for it, but often they are of the opinion that when things go wrong... you do not announce it to the world. I can respect that opinion, especially in this tell all generations where people seem to find it necessary to share every little detail about their lives, even the ones we REALLY did not want to know.
For some of us first generation homemakers however, this works discouraging. We have no other rolemodels to look at for full time homemakers than either old television shows (which we at least KNOW to be unrealistic) and the women we get to know through the internet who go before us.

So I made the commitment that while I want to share my inspirations and triumphs and joys, I will also share the ah... less pretty side.
On sunday... my house looked beautiful, the roses beamed at me in approval and I felt satisfied with the world. Three days, two doctors appointments, a husband with a busy time at work and a son with a cold later... these are the changes:

- Miscelanious objects have managed to congregate on my desk. I do not know how or why, because I certainly did not invite me, but from where I sit right here I can see a homeschooling book, a stick of deodorant, two childrens books, an empty box of tissues, a box of dried prunes, a necklace, a box of crayons that should be in the desk not on it, a mug, a can with an energy drink, a pretty tea cup, a childrens cup and a half worked scribbled drawing that my son made while talking with his grandmother on skype, as well as some junk mail. It's a big desk.

- The crystal bowl with the pretty red apples had to be removed because my son kept helping himself. That would not be so bad, after all, fruit is good for you, if he would actually eat one apple, and then go to the next one. Instead he selected one, bit in it. Took it along... left it somewhere and when whim stroke stretched his hand out for the next one. We went through three apples before I caught on and intervened. Two of the apples are now on Joseph's own plastic table to hopefully be finished off by tonight.

- There is one basket of duplo's upended on the carpet, and Joseph's shoes are laying next to them where I put them after I took them off to put him down for his nap. For some reason, my husband's tie is also laying on the carpet.

- The pretty white table cloth is unfortunately no longer pretty and white. Two days ago my son wanted to play with the coin box and help pick up the coins from the table and put them back in the jar. We 'counted' money for literally an hour and a half. Dirty coins leave residue on a white table cloth.

- To finish off the table cloth, came our daily practice of independance and self reliance: the idea that we should allow a child to do things for itsself so that he can become more independant and a greater help to mommy and daddy and he learns to do an effort. It's a great thing to stimulate at the age of two and a half where children actually LOVE to do things by themselves. It's also a sticky thing to stimulate, literally. Because while Joseph is learning how to spread cream cheese or choco spread on his own crackers or bread, the once white table cloth suffers in the two seconds there are between mommy realizing the impending disaster and the moment where she can hand a whipe to her son after having hauled her pregnant body from the chair in an unseemly display of haste, rushed off to the kitchen, found the whipe and offered it while exclaiming "NO Joseph, you're being a good boy... keep your hands up... no... keep it... oh..."



Now after I have finished up this post, I WILL actually put that tablecloth in the washing machine... I will clean up the clutter on my desk and it will probably only take ten minutes. But some days, I am too tired and by now just need a nap. Or some soothing time to knit, and some days it grows from this little bit of disorder to more extravagant proportions. Then I need a bouquet of pretty pink roses or another reminder that even in this season, even with limited time, I can create some order and pretty - ness amidst the choco smears. At least for a few hours.

I didn't get up in time

Bah! For three days in a row I wake up feeling as if someone has been chasing me all night. I wake up around 5.30 am, and then can't get back to sleep immediately. This morning I gave in. My husband skipped his work out and I skipped getting up early. It's just one day, but I must make sure that it remains only that. Joseph had stayed up later than usual yesterday so he is still asleep. Hurray!
And the house is incredibly clean. (see yesterdays post) hurray!
I promise here and now, that if I have the money, I will offer this same service to my daughter or daughter in law at the time. It was the most thoughtful christmas gift I could imagine. It really is the gift of time. Because since my house is now all caught up, maintenance should not be such a problem.
For the last two years I have loved my little swiffer vac, for day to day to day crumbs. I am finding out that as a mother of a todler you are always chasing crumbs. Last sunday we added a cute little shark steamcleaner to the family of 'small and easy' cleaning appliances. I have a nice, big, floorscrubber which works very well, but which I just do not get out on a day to day basis to remove the dropped spinach underneath the highchair. A quick clean with a damp cloth doesn't seem to do the trick, or I forget to react immediately because I want to eat dinner. Then I forget after dinner and by the time Joseph is in bed, it has hardened into a cement like substance. And then I am not even mentioning oatmeal.
The shark is ready to use in 30 seconds, lightweight and requires no chemicals or anything.
So, after dinner, my husband will keep our little boy buys for about ten-fifteen minutes while I clear off the table and do a quick steaming of the floor. It's a new part of the routine to keep the house clean. Furthermore, I will spend half an hour working during naptime, before taking my 'private time' for email, reading, knitting or anything else, so that we can try and keep up with the work.

The cleaning ladies

I've praised my husband quite a few times on this blog. My in laws however have not been mentioned that often. I have GREAT in laws. No room for mother in law jokes here. They have welcomed me in the family, helped me adapt to the new country, enveloped me in their love and been generally a wonderful support.
This christmas, my mother in law, gave me a wonderful gift. She said that when she had had a baby, her mother in law arranged for a cleaning crew to come once a month for a few months. Not for day to day maintenance, but for those things that you never get to with a sweet little one running around your ankles. She said she wanted to do the same thing for me!

I was thrilled! Especially when I met the man who came to check the house before the first cleaning and he told me that the very first time they came, they would do a deep spring cleaning. He talked about the ladies cleaning things that frankly, I had not cleaned since I moved in here half a year ago.
Besides, since november we have alternated between travelling or being sick. Needless to say, the house needs a bit of attention. Okay, make that a lot of attention. And while I feel pretty guilty at the idea of other people coming in and cleaning my house for me, I am extremely grateful for my mother in laws thoughtfulness.

In addition to that gratitude, the fact that professional cleaning ladies will come into my house today has another positive effect. With the suitcases and bags of three trips, one of them intercontinental, two of them with baby spread around the house, half unpacked and no time for much maintenance tidying when you just run in and out of the house for a few days before hitting the road again, the place had become cluttered. I detest clutter. I HATE clutter. I have almost religious objections against clutter. Unfortunately, like many temptations, clutter likes to keep a close eye on me and if I forgo the fight for a few weeks, it takes control over my house and over me. I become scatterbrained, distracted and don't get any work done.

Still, while I started to do some tidying here and there since last thursday when we we ended the string of holidays, it didn't really have a direction to it. But now, there will be professional cleaning ladies coming in my house. I do not want them to lose their time moving Josephs toys around, or dealing with sixteen little jars and tubes on my vanity table.
In the last three days, I threw out four or five bags of 'stuff', I emptied nearly every single surface, emptied all the suitcases and bags, put all the clothes that were clean back in the closets and those that weren't in the apropriete laundry baskets, and went through Josephs toy and book basket to weed out what wasn't played with anymore to put it away in a bin in the storage closet. The cleaning ladies have not even been here, and my house looks ten times better! Good work!