Getting Mad

Keeping a home cleaned and tidied with 8 people residing in it, most of them under the age of 11, is really, REALLY difficult. And when my house is messy, there is something that goes off in my brain that makes me want to clean it. And clean it RIGHT NOW! I can't cook in a mseey kitchen. I can't read bedtime stories to my children when their rooms are messy. I have to have my bed made before I can climb into it, so if that means making it right before I go to bed, it still has to be done. Nobody else in my home seems to see things that way. They could form paths through the chaos and be fine with it. They have no problem using a dirty bathroom and then not even flushing after themselves.

And so we have jobs. We have three jobs that we alternate between the three girls and change monthly. I pretty much keep it done during the day and they make sure it is all tidied before they go to bed at night. The first is dishes and tidting up the kitchen. The second is the kitchen table and tile floors in the kitchen area. And the third job is the stairs, hallway, and kids bathroom. It isn't too bad. The biggest challenge is the stairs. Anything that needs to go upstairs gets put on the bottom of the stairs. Anything that needs to go down gets put at the top of the stairs. That is why that job is equal to dishes. This month Danielle has the stairs and hallway. She gets quite frustrated when anything is put on the bottom of the stairs. And so she left this note last night that I discovered this morning and couldn't stop chuckling. It is exactly how I fell about the whole house and the cleaning I do only lasting maybe five minutes.