We all strive to have that clean house, everything in its place don’t we? All the toys put up, clothes finished, dishes done, floors vacuumed and mopped. This is every woman’s goal and expectation of how things should be. We see all these perfect houses with nothing out-of-place on HGTV and this is the image of how we think our houses should look like. We tend to not see the staging that takes place in those homes for them to look that way.
Here is the real truth about what the typical house with children really looks like. I have really had to dig down deep and realize that my house will never be like the houses on HGTV. I have 3 children, a husband, a German Shepherd (Gator), and myself that all live in our home. Having a house full, I have learned to pick and choose my battles when it comes to what is “clean”. I have accepted my children’s rooms will never be organized and clean how I want them. Their clean and my clean are totally different.
I have learned that it is ok their rooms not perfect, that things not being in the places I want them are ok. I gave up on that battle because I saw a better battle to fight that was more reasonable. They have their rooms to destroy and play in how they choose, and I get to keep my living room toy free (for the most part). They get to have their rooms their way, and I get my living room the way I want it. It’s a win, win if you ask me.
I do make the kids get in their rooms with me once a week to clean it up and organize it, but I know by the end of the day it will look nothing like it did when it was clean. I have just realized I like having “my space” my way and to let them have their space “their way”. When I finally started seeing things in that perspective it was a kind of freeing feeling. As mom’s there is already so much pressure when it comes to our kids, the house, husbands, and trying to balance it all, that learning to let stuff go makes life so much easier.
Just because my kids rooms aren’t perfectly clean doesn’t mean my house isn’t clean. My kitchen is almost always clean, my living room is clean, bathrooms are clean, and my laundry is for the most part always caught up. When I let go of the worry of how my kid’s room looked, I had time to focus on the other things that were honestly more important. You can always just shut the kid’s door if you have company, you can’t shut your living room, kitchen, or bathroom doors. So why now make those the key things to keep clean?
Laundry is probably every mom’s worst nightmare. I know I can’t stand having to wash, dry, fold, and put up laundry. I mean think about how many times you actually have to touch each article of clothing before you’re finally done with it (overwhelming huh?). I am the kind of person in order for laundry to stay caught up I have to do a load every day. This keeps it from getting so overwhelming for me because I will never get it all folded and up put if I have to do 2 or 3 loads in the same day. I did get behind over the Martin Luther King Jr Holiday weekend and I thought I was never going to get it all finished!!
I say all of this to hopefully give hope, that you’re not the only one that can’t keep the kids rooms clean, that you’re not the only one to struggle in one area or another. I have just come to realize there are some battles not worth fighting and others that would be an easy trade. The struggle we face every day we are not alone, there are more moms than we probably realize out there with the same struggles but we all try to hide it and act like we all have it together. The reality of this is that yes our lives might be together in some areas and in other areas it’s not together. We need to stop living in the fantasy we have it all together world and just embrace how much we don’t have it together sometimes!
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