Imperfect Homeschool

Here's a dirty (literally) little secret: My house isn't clean... almost ever. You've seen pictures of our house/homeschool and they usually make things look at least in relative order, but where do you think I do my baking? What do you imagine happens when I have to drag out and sort all of the laundry? And you know we have two large dogs. Imagine all of the fur.

By the way, just to keep the fur balls under control, now that Juno is shedding her winter coat, I have to vacuum the entire house twice a week at least. Honestly... that rarely happens. Hair accumulates and I actually get around to wrangling it about once a week.

I'd like to convince you that I'm not trying to impress anyone, but that wouldn't exactly be true. I snap into obsessive, "mom is a grumpy monster" cleaning mode when I know someone is coming to visit. I even have a less monstrous version that I visit right before the babysitter gets here. In fact, I find this blog topic particularly entertaining because, just this morning, I was thinking if I had to choose between a housekeeper and a babysitter, I'd probably choose the housekeeper. Except, and this is very important, I don't really want a housekeeper because I'd always feel like she (or he, to avoid any assumptions) was basically going through all of my stuff with my permission.

I think, for me, there's more guilt associated with not being able to clean up after myself (and, admittedly, several other people and two dogs), than with needing some time away from the kids. And, as a result, I don't want to ask someone else to do it for me, and I don't want anyone to see my mess.

When I sort laundry, I drag everyone's collections of dirty things into the front room as well as all of the baskets, then I basically toss things into piles on the floor until it makes sense. I guess that's what most people call load sorting. I try to stuff all of the piles into respective baskets, but that doesn't always happen. I don't have enough baskets for all of the piles without also using hampers. And hampers have to make it back to the bedrooms.

I don't know if this is a normal thing for homes full of children, but there's a whole segment of my kitchen counter that is nearly covered with things I'm keeping away from them, things I need to fix, or projects we haven't complete yet. There are coloring books and crayons up there as well as a pair of shorts I need to take in at the waist, a package of wipes, a bottle of lotion, a can of fabreeze, and my sun glasses and keys. If I tried to list the entire contents of the counter, you'd stop reading halfway through, but I feel like that cross section gives you a fair idea of what ends up there. It's not exactly "just a mess", because it has its function. It is an eye sore, though.

And speaking of "ending up" somewhere. the back corner of the back room is a graveyard. The chairs from the old dining set are stacked up next to the fridge that came with the house. The chairs are in serious disrepair (although they don't look it) and the fridge is far too small for our family needs. We replaced the whole dining set and the refrigerator long ago. We're never going to use the old ones again... so why are they still there? Fair question.

On top of the fridge is a box of Christmas decorations. Yes, the X-mas decor box is still not in the attic, and it's nearly June.

There's a random array of other, smaller items about that corner, including extra foam tiles I'm not using, a crib-sized comforter I've had since the twins were babies (no, it hasn't been in the same place, or even in disuse that whole time), an extension chord I use outside sometimes and a plastic thing for hanging a garden hose that, presumably, we will actually hang sometime before garden-hose-using season is over.

My kids have a playroom. Their mess stays mostly in there, unless you count the scattering of clothes on their bedroom floor when outfit indecision hits. When we moved in here, I thought that would mean that the rest of the house would stay basically clean. It turns out adults make different messes, but just as many of them... if not more.