Death and other funky smells

I have realized that one sure fire way to get me to clean my house, rid it of clutter, is to plant a dead mouse somewhere for me to root out! It's the sad truth! Before we bought our house, it was abandoned and mice moved in. We did a remodel before moving in but the mice occasionally try to get in to find warmth, water and food. You know how it goes. So anyway, my house is still clean from when my mother-in-lay broke down and did some much needed chores while I was away on vacay. Bless her! BUT honestly, I did have a bag full of cans lingering by the back door to take in. (We cash in pop cans here in Michigan, long story) The smell from that can get a little funky. Regardless, it inspired me to clean, to get out the mop and the good smelling cleanser and start scrubbing. I mopped, dusted, washed walls and counter tops and actually busted out the window cleaner and did the windows. Stop me. I'm out of control.

Deep cleaning is not something I do often. I don't wipe down the base boards or the ceiling fans like my Mom does on Saturdays. Does this make me a horrible Mom or Wife? No! I have better things to do with my time. I sit in the floor and play legos. I take walks and gather rocks for the rock garden and point out different birds, pretending to know what their Latin names are. One day the toddler will go to school and make a fool out of herself, thinking that she knows her business. Oops.

I do craft time with the toddler. We paint. We draw. We color. We make things with clay. She cuts pictures out of magazines and we make paper dolls with them. It's fun and while we do these things the house work gets put on the back burner. The laundry is never really put away. Unless by "away" you mean sometimes neatly folded and placed in laundry baskets where they stay until someone needs something. I use to be ashamed. Not anymore. Just because I'm not the most organized person in the world, it doesn't mean I'm not doing my job as a mother.

So, if you're a stay-at-home mom and you struggle with guilt, thinking that you're failing as a mom by not keeping a spotless home, you're delusional! As long as you have children living in your home, you will never have a spotless home. So stop beating yourself up over it and live your life. Yes, teaching your children responsibility is important so cleaning up after yourself is a good idea. But ignoring your fun loving nature to make sure others don't call you a slob is sad. Don't do that!

When I die people aren't going to say "WOW her house was always so clean!" that's for sure! I want them to remember me for my love of living, not cleaning!