When it’s time to clean the house you would think I asked my family to build an addition on to the home. Suddenly the boys are throwing themselves on the floor in a complete meltdown, including my husband. The whining is quiet comical….
We just cleaned last week!
This is the first day of summer vacation!
I need to relax! I had school and practice this week!
The truth of the matter is, I don’t want to clean either. I too am having an adult meltdown internally. I have 4 million other things I would rather be doing then cleaning this shit hole. Last month we temporarily suspended our man maid to save some money. He hasn’t been doing a great job lately and I found myself going back over some of his work.
Cleaning Preparation
At 9 a.m. I announce, “Ok boys, at 10:30 we are going to start cleaning.”
10:30 comes and goes.
“Ok, boys, we didn’t quiet make that deadline. At 11:30, we clean!”
At 11:30 I think,’well crap it’s lunchtime. We can’t work on empty stomachs.’
As you can see, I too am stalling just as much as my children.
My husband shuffles over to me, rolling his eyes.
“Okkkk,” he let’s out defeated. “What do I have to do?”
This question always infuriates me. You are a grown-ass man who clearly can see. Look around, what do you think you have to do? And like a parent, giving your child carefully selected choices, I say,
“Pick your poison. The entire house is trashed.”
And does this inspire him to pick up a mop? Does he start tearing the sheets off the bed? No. His next move, is to go outside. Apparently “cleaning the house” includes the garage.
The Cleaning
I’m still vacuuming the sofa when my 8-year-old comes down after just 15 minutes and announces he’s done cleaning his room. His room was trashed and part of their jobs were to vacuum, dust, put all their clothes away and rip the sheets off the bunks so I could put fresh sheets on. I follow him up to inspect but first I peer inside my 12-year-old’s room to check his progress. He’s busily texting on his phone. I decide not to intervene as perhaps it’s just 1 text.
What I walk into is still a disaster. Here is what “cleaning his room” looked like:
- 2 bowls on a ledge, 1 bowl in the crevice between his mattress and the wooden guards.
- A 1/2 drank Gatorade bottle and a rice crispie treat wrapper on his nightstand.
- Clothes all over the top of his desk.
- All other “junk” hidden underneath his little bean bag chair.
“C, this room isn’t clean yet. You’ve got trash still laying around, bowls up on the ledge and clothes all over your desk!”
“You didn’t say clean my desk!”
This pisses me off even more because this is a conversation we have on a weekly basis. Apparently, if I don’t specify which pieces of furniture to clean, then they aren’t part of his room.
“Why are you making us clean on the first day of summer break?” He questions.
“Because the house needs cleaned!”
“But this is ruining our Saturday!” He whines.
My anger is boiling over by now and I begin to flip out.
“Tell ya’ what C, how ’bout after I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, I come home and do ALL the cleaning while you and your brother do nothing since your on summer break?”
“We do do something. You give us chores everyday during the summer!” He retorts.
I need to keep it together because I’m about to loose my shit. The daily “chores” he’s referring to usually look like this:
- make your bed
- brush your teeth
- pull weeds in the front
- organize the Tupperware drawer
These tasks take a combined total of 20-30 minutes in which they now have the rest of the day to play. I know, I’m so evil.
Getting my family to clean the house is SOUL SUCKING. I am convinced this is paybacks for my poor behavior with my dad who wanted to clean every Saturday morning. I would roll my eyes and sulk at every task I was given. God I can’t wait till my boys have kids. I think I’ll come over on cleaning day, grab a glass of wine and watch the train wreck unfold.
My friend’s parents once went the route of “you don’t want to clean? Fine, we will just leave it” (save for actual food garbage that would collect bugs) and once the kids realised they couldn’t have anyone over because there was literally no room anywhere, they changed their tune real quick haha. While I don’t love chores, I’d rather get them done early!!
I thought about that tactic and your friend’s parents must have some mad patience but I don’t think I could do that. I’m with you! I would rather get it done, get it out of the way.
Sounds like my life!
I figure!
Lol!!!
You know, just reading this post made me whiney and lazy. Looks like I have to improve my house husbanding attitude…
Yes…yes you do! When are you guys gonna realize the sexiest thing you guys can do is willingly clean? Clean the entire house= panty dropper.
hehehehe sure, but now we’re talking about more laundry 😉 😉 😉
Good call!
My girls are three and one. Cleaning rules/ruins my time! !
Ruins is definitely the word to use here! Lol!!
Oh sweetness I hated cleaning when I was younger. Every Saturday we had to clean our rooms and I was do jealous of my brother cos he could do it so quickly but I collected porceline figurines which all needed to be carefully dusted before being put back onto the shelf.
My son had 30 build a bears he refuses to part with, collecting dust all the time!
He doesn’t have to part with them in a real sense…but maybe they could just live in a box?…in the garage?…lol That way he can still see them whenever he wants to but they aren’t collecting dust in your house? I think stuffies are easy to clean though…throw them into the wash and off they go! hehe
I’ve never washed them. I wonder if I could.
If you take the tags off I’m sure you could.
” Clean the entire house= panty dropper.” I came home one day last week and Fella had: loaded and ran the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen counters and stove top, vacuumed the living room, done a load of laundry (and remembered to hang dry my bras), gone to the store and bought me a dozen roses and some chocolates and a new video game… JUST ‘CAUSE!! Yup, I picked a good one. 😉
Wow! That is a real good one! You lucky dog!
Your kid has a phone. That’s called leverage. And the younger one surely has screen time of some sort. My friend candy always brought the controllers to the video games to work. Because the boys would do their homework and chores before she got home that way. They begged her to leave them and hide them just once so they got extra screen time and for proof she trusts them. So she did. And they called her I kid you not 20 times over the hour she was at work to when she had to leave. “I know yiu aren’t done chores. Do them and I will tell you where they are.” over and over and over. I finally looked over my desk: candy what the hell? She looked at me with disdain ” theyre lying. I know theyre lying. They could have been playing for 40 minutes and they still have to do the chores so I don’t know what they think theyre winning by looking everywhere.” “candy how do you know theyre lying?” “because the controllers are under the bowls they are supposed to wash.”
Mic drop.
OMG!!! That is so brilliant! That almost deserves 2 mic drops! Im going to have to try that!
Gahhhhhhh I HATE HATE cleaning. Is there any way you can sell a kidney to get a man maid back? It’s just not been worth it to me to do it myself….
I know…I know and you know what? We’ve decided to not have him come back. He doesn’t do a good job and though it SUCKKKKSSSSS to have to do it, I’m going to have to. Ugh!!! Hate cleaning so much!!!
I’d find someone else. Or move into a clean house LOL
Well that seems far more easier than cleaning the house. Ha!!! LOL!