This evening I took all 4 kids to a school disco by myself. The disco was at 4:30pm (great time for a party!) and we were home by 5:45. Andy had his work Christmas party, so he wasn't home when I got back, and I managed to do a 4 kids dinner and bedtime by myself. Kids ate yogurt and shreddies for dinner (the disco had pizza and hot dogs)... and everyone was asleep by 7:45.
Andy does 4 kids dinner and bedtime twice a month when I'm in the office, but I can't remember the last time I tried. It went fine! Tiring, but fine.
After they went to bed I wasn't sure what to do with my sudden free time. I thought that I could go to bed early and get up early and workout... or I could do housework...
I could order myself a pizza and watch the Barbie Movie (it was a goal of mine to watch it this year). This sounded great, except that ordering a pizza for myself seemed kind of weird. We don't ever order takeout, and I know the one thing I can't do when at home with 4 asleep kids is leave the house, but it just seemed like not the best use of £20 right now.
I decided to putter around the house and tidy it up. I've been very intentionally trying not to spend all my free time cleaning and tidying lately. I've stopped hoovering multiple times a week. Friday twin nap time is Rachel time, I've been doing Peloton or other Rachel-adjacent things. But this evening I started listening to some recent Organize 365 podcasts and enjoyed properly cleaning and tidying the downstairs.
It took about 1.5 hours but it looks so much better, I've hoovered everything, taken toys upstairs, taken down the fall decorations. I do feel nice when spaces are clean, and even though it's still somewhat cluttered (the rising tide of "stuff" that happens with a reachy & grabby 2 year old is legit!) at least things feel a bit more orderly.
I've also been intentionally not defaulting to putting away laundry all the time, which means that our bedroom has a giant clean laundry basket which gets fuller and fuller until Andy and I find a time to put it away together. I used to operate a very "just in time" clothing system, where the kids had enough clothes to last exactly the time between washes. I've slowly accumulated more clothes so that technically we could go 3-4 days between washes if we needed to. While putting away 3 loads of laundry recently Andy said "I think the issue is the kids have too many clothes". I told Andy that was the point of the new laundry system - it was no longer dependant on me.
[BTW I feel this post is turning towards "look how much I don't do" but Andy and I both spend so so much of our life tidying up after kids that it's definitely not a "more or less" comparison. It's a "there is endless work to keep things running but also we both need to carve our own time too" situation.]
Also,while I am on the division of labour topic, one great thing is that my favourite end of day routine is sortng the kitchen - loading the dishwasher (I am thankful for dishwasher daily), wiping the counter, putting away food, washing other dishes, sweeping the kitchen... if given an evening tidy choice I will always chose kitchen. Andy always starts with dining room. I hate dining room (sweeping under tables is awful). It works really well.
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I am not sure how this weekend will go. Ezra has tennis lessons on Saturday morning and we need to go refill our spices at the zero waste shop in the village. Sometimes my life is just too middle class. There is a local Santa tour around our village on Sunday which we will try and see. We are hoping to get to the charity shop to buy some christmas decorations. I am making Turkey chili tomorrow with some freezer turkey from thanksgiving. And otherwise, it's just a december weekend!
I'm feeling less Grinchy than I was last week now that our house is tidy. Which maybe means I should tidy more? But then I feel grumpy about my time spent tidying. There is no win.
Maybe next year we can find a cleaner again (I will someday blog about my multiple failed attempts at hiring a cleaner recently)
I get it. Pizza and Barbie would have been nice, but there is also the feeling of sanity that comes from having a tidy house. My #1 priority is a clean kitchen as well. I want it all ready to go for the next time that I need it.
ReplyDeleteCorrect, there is no winning. Tidy house = time spent tidying or time spent finding a cleaner which may or may not be harder than just doing it yourself. Sigh.
I was wondering if you guys have a cleaner. I want one, I need one, but don’t know how to go about it. I had some numbers which I called but then I gawked at the price. I am my own worst enemy and I don’t know how to get over myself.
ReplyDeleteDaria from momofchildren
4 kids solo bedtime is top tier parent achievement level. -rachel
ReplyDeleteWe have a cleaner right now thanks to gift cards from my colleagues. I want to have them come monthly going forward but my husband said no. He doesn't like paying people to clean up our messes. I wish we could outsource that task because we are very busy and can easily afford it, and it's a way to contribute to the economy/paid labor. But our agreement is that we either hire out or Phil does all of the cleaning. So he does all of the cleaning. I did the pre-cleaning tidy up yesterday and it is alot of work to put everything away but it's nice to do it every 2-4 weeks. Phil tends to clean the house in batches so the house is never fully clean. I love the feeling of it being fully clean but it's not a hill I am going to die on!
ReplyDeleteMy husband does quite a bit besides cleaning, like snow blowing, mowing in the summer, and grocery shopping. But a lot of what I do is more invisible work, like planning gifts for christmas/birthdays, getting teacher gifts, registering for before/after care programs, researching summer camps, scheduling and bringing the kids to doctor appts. So it looks like Phil does way more than me, but I think we are as close to 50/50 as we can be. He does a lot of solo parenting when I travel but I take the kids out on adventures for hours on the weekends to give him a break.
Taking four kids to a school dance and putting them to bed is a gold star from me.
ReplyDeleteHow clean I would like my house to be exceeds the amount of time and energy I want to spend cleaning it but it is very satisfying when I feel the house is clean. I like cleaning the kitchen because I think it looks so much better after a fairly short period of time.