Cleaning program,,,take 2

The New Cleaning Program

Today is the start of my new cleaning program. Yes, I attempted a new cleaning program over the summer and it didn’t work so well. Yes, I will wait for the laughter to subside before I continue.

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Okay then. My summer cleaning program, while good intentioned and well planned, did not happen. Yes most of the activities I had planned would only take 15-30 minutes to do each day, but what I had not taken into account was that it would be 15-30 minutes tacked onto my already full day. Maybe prior to having a kid, I could have gotten it done. Maybe prior to having a dog who pees inside all the ever-loving time and requires carpet steam cleaning before the kid splashed through it like a splash pad, I could have gotten it done. Maybe if I was getting more than 3 hours of sleep in a row, it would have gotten done.

Maybe if I stopped making excuses….nah.

Regardless of why it didn't get done, it didn’t. One of the big points of Flylady’s system (yes, I am a flybaby, I’ve just been fluttering a bit lately instead of flying) is to find what works for you.

 (You haven’t heard of FlyLady? Go check it out at Flylady.com)

So I’m trying something else, because my old system is not working. Be it out of lack of time, lack of energy, or sheer laziness, it’s not working. My new system will be…keeping 3 rooms clean in my house at all times, and then slowly tackling the other rooms.

These three rooms will be: Kaylee’s bedroom, my bathroom, and the laundry room. Why these three rooms? Because they are small rooms that can be easily maintained, yet get very messy very quickly.

While we are still bed-sharing with Bug, she loves to go through her closet and take out clothes, or throw her stuffed animals around the room, or her blankets. Her changing table was quickly turned into a catch-all surface for random stuff (oh, there’s my bag of zip-ties!) ever since she started rolling and decided that diaper changing should be an Olympic sport. At the end of the night her floor is covered with toys, blankets, etc. and since she hasn’t learned how to pick-up yet (but we’re working on it), that leaves it to me.

My bathroom also falls victim to Hurricane Kaylee, combined with Tropical Storm Kristi. Every Sunday I hang my clothes for the week on my towel rods so that I don’t need to go into the closet and risk waking up the sleeping people in the room. This would not be so bad, if it weren’t for the 10 empty hangers from the week before, or the already worn clothes that just end up piled on the floor. Most of this is laziness, as the laundry hamper is just outside the door to my bathroom. I just need to suck it up and put it away when I’m done.

Hurricane Kaylee comes into play in the mornings. Most mornings she will wake up between 6:15 and 6:30, aka, the time when Mom is getting ready. If Scott tries to keep her in bed she will scream bloody murder, so usually after 2 minutes I hear a little knock at the door and in she comes. She will be content with brushing her teeth or playing with my (in-activated) phone for about 5 minutes, and then starts to unroll the toilet paper, or play with the trash can, or start removing all the items from under the sink. (And before you say it, she has a small container of toys and books under the sink, but we all know those are NOT interesting compared to things like, oh, mommy’s extra –and still sealed – contact solution bottle). In the last week she has grown tall enough to reach 99% of the counter top in the bathroom, which makes things even more challenging.

The room is just big enough to hold the sink, toilet, and shower, so this results in the room being nigh unusable very quickly. I keep telling myself that it should also work in reverse, so that is my goal. Easy to mess, easy to clean (just like weight, easy on easy off, no? Ah well)

The third room is the laundry room. Truth be told, this room is still looking pretty good from my summer make-over. The problem now is the dog. See, while I do like her on most days, I don’t like steam cleaning the carpet every-single-day, or sometimes multiple times per day. The vet said she’s not sick, she just can’t hold her bladder very long these days. So, now while we are at work, she has been relocated to the laundry room. This way I just have to throw away pee pads and do a quick mop, vs running the steam cleaner. But, this also means that my budding romance with my laundry room has gone back to a “ugh, you again” type of relationship. It smells like dog pee, regularly has pee on the floor for me to deal with, and gone are the days of having Kaylee in there with me while I fold the laundry.

My hope is that after a few weeks of keeping these three rooms clean, it will become habit to me to keep these rooms clean and I can start adding in other rooms as I progress. Here’s hoping!