Nobody does it better

I am not now, nor will I ever be, the housekeeper my mother is.

That said, I have discovered a secret to motivation in house cleaning: keep a toddler around.

Liam is a pro at finding the dirtiest, nastiest corner of the house to play in. You know, the dirt I never even knew existed.

Our house is consistently cleaner these days than it has ever been. That should make both my mother and my mother-in-law happy.

I’m not talking about simple clutter here, I am talking about real dirt. There was a program on TLC for awhile called “Clean Sweep.” Scary! I cannot understand how people can actually live in clutter to the ceiling. I am not a pack rat. If it doesn’t serve a function in my life . . . it goes. Sentimental value be damned. I don’t have room for junque.

You see, clutter I have never had any tolerance for, but dirt I couldn’t easily see never bothered me. I have always been a lick-and-a-promise kind of housekeeper. I was always thankful to have overnight guests several times a year cause it gave me the needed impetus to really deep clean the place. In my world then, as long as it didn’t show too much, I could easily pretend like the dirt didn’t exist. Now that Liam drags it out of its hiding place for everyone to see, it has become more of a concern.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think my house has ever been really truly disgustingly filthy, but I was much more casual about the state of cleanliness around here than I am now. Maybe that’s why my mom scrubs her place faithfully every week and I swear her floors are clean enough to eat off of. She had four little girls tear-assing around for far too many years to ever come down off that horse. So, maybe there is hope for me yet. Perhaps when Liam becomes old enough to stop playing in the track of the sliding glass door and behind the door in the bathroom and in the farthest back corner behind the recliner in the family room, these better housekeeping habits will be so ingrained I will not revert back to my casual ways of LBL. One can only hope.