Thursday, October 14, 2010

Why It Takes Me Six Hours to Mop My Floor

I woke up this morning and thought today is the day I'm going to mop my floor! I've been trying to get my floors mopped for over a week.  You might be wondering how it's possible to try to mop your floors for a week and not get it done.  By the end of this post you will wonder no more.
This is how my day went.
Wake up.
Get Croix up, fix us both a delicious and nutritious breakfast.
Doing the morning ritual of diaper change, watch the morning news for a moment to see the weather, make sure World Ward three hasn't started (I would need to know that).
Ok I've had my moment time to get to the floors.
I need to pick up all the stuff on the floors before I can vacuum them (I don't sweep I vacuum).
I realize if I'm going to vacuums the kitchen I might as well vacuum the living room.
Pick up all the toys in the living room.
Go comfort Croix from what ever has broken his heart.
Move on to the kitchen.  Pick up all the dished from Croix's cupboards he has free reign over.
All clutter has been picked up off the floors.
Croix is now screaming for attention.
Pop in Baby Einstein.
Back to the kitchen.
If I'm going to vacuum I need to clear off the counters since I'm lazy and just wipe all the crap off the counter onto the floor and then vacuum it up.
Start clearing off the counters.
Realize I need to go through the giant pile of papers on the counter.
Take majority of the pile to my recycling bin.
Realize recycling bin is full.
Take recycling bin and empty it into the one out side.  Try not to be angry since this is Brent's job, he's busy, I can take out the recycling.
Come back inside to a child who thinks he was abandoned.  Who wouldn't?  He couldn't see me for an entire three minutes.
Put Croix in his high chair, get a snack.
What am I doing?  Floors!  No, recycling.
Put recycling bin back.
Remember I need to switch the laundry I started last night.
Switch laundry, luckily I remembered before it started to smell so it doesn't need rewashed. (all to frequent occurrence at out house)
Back to clearing off the counters.
Glance at the clock 10:30, nap time.
Take Croix up stairs try not to rush nap time routine.
I try frantically to get as much done as possible during nap time!
I finish clearing off the counters!
Wipe off the counters.
Look at the dining room table, also full of crumbs, crumbs that should be vacuumed up too.
Clear off the dinning room table.
Wipe the dinning room table off.
Vacuum the floor!!!
Time to mop!
I go to fill the sink with water so I can mop the floors.
The sink is full of dishes, better put them in the dishwasher.
Open the dishwasher to find it full of clean dishes.
Start to empty the dishwasher and realize that since I tried to cram in a giant pan, the spinny thing could not spin, so the dishes are still dirty.
Take out the giant pan and restart the dishwasher.
Decide I don't have enough time to wait for it to get done to mop the floors so I'll just hand wash all the dishes and pans on the counter.
Croix wakes up.
Get Croix, spend a little extra time snuggling to make up for the neglect through out the morning.
Get us both a healthy and nutritious lunch.
Try and stick to my routine and so I sit down and read scriptures to Croix while we eat rather then eating bites of food between putting things away and continuing cleaning.
Finish lunch, more dishes.
Turn Baby Einstein back on, que Mom guilt.
Start washing dishes.
Wash the crock pot and remember that my visiting teachers are coming at 4 and Brent gets home at 5 and has class tonight and has to leave at 5:20.  I better throw something in the crock pot so Brent can eat dinner tonight.
Pause washing dishes.
Throw dinner together in the crock pot.  Realize I HAVE to go to the store for this meal, it now can't wait until tomorrow as planned.
Get myself and Croix dressed.
Check the clock 1:30, 30 min till nap time.
Rush to the grocery store in a wild attempt to get grocery shopping done and get home before 2, Croix's nap time.
As I pull up I get a phone call.  I'm trying to talk on the phone, carry Croix, my giant diaper bag, two reusable grocery bags and my shopping cart cover.  End up hanging up on my friend imagine that.  Sigh put the phone in the diaper bag.  Try and wrangle the shopping cart cover on the cart, phone is ringing.  Answer phone tell friend will call back later (humm I'm now trying to remember if I ever did that or not, don't think so)
Rush through the store trying to make sure that in my hurry I don't forget anything (thank goodness I remembered my list!)
Try not to rage at all the old people taking up an entire isle and feel the need to comment, touch, oogle, and stare at my adorable child.  Sorry people too busy today to appreciate it!
Check out get to the car.  Pray Croix doesn't fall out as I'm unlocking the car, wish for the one millionth time I hadn't lost my remote lock years ago.
Irresponsibly abandon my shopping cart at the closest "safe place" possible (really my groceries and child are in the car do you expect me to walk half way across the parking lot to put my cart where it belongs?)
Start to back up, look in my rearview and see the person behind me backing up as well, at the same time.
LAY ON THE HORN!!!  Slam on the breaks, throw in the car in drive and narrowly escape a parking lot accident I clearly do not have time for!
Sit in my spot for almost a full minute, in park, waiting for the other driver to leave, they have their backup lights on, I don't trust them!  I finally roll down my window and wave them out.  I think "Go back to Canada!!!"
Rush home.
Unload groceries, not all of them, just the chicken.  The rest can wait until after I put Croix down for his nap which he's now 30 minutes over due for.
WAY past nap time.
Go put Croix down for a nap, again trying not to rush.
Check my email that went off on my phone 10 times while being gone.
Croix is still awake.  (I usually sit on the computer for the 5ish minutes it takes Croix to fall asleep so I know what time he fell asleep so I know how much rest he gets, as this can affect bed time)
Check facebook for a second.
Croix is still awake.
Check blogger.
Croix is still awake, screaming now.
Well I've wasted enough of my day hoping he'd fall asleep, doesn't appear he's going to do that.
Get Croix up.  Get him some milk.
Baby Einstein, Mom guilt.
Back to the dishes.
CRAP!  The rest of the groceries are still in the car.
Finish unloading the rest of my groceries.  Say a prayer of gratitude for a garage and the fact that it's not 115 out side so they area still fine.
Finish dishes.
The sink is empty!
Fill the sink with mop water.
Try to mop the floors, but my poor neglected child is now screaming, with tears running down his face.  Less then an hour till my visiting teachers get here!
Snuggle Croix as long as possible, pop him in his high chair with a snack and talk and sing to him as I mop the floor.


Floors are mopped!!!

Go to get Croix down, he throws his entire snack on the floor.
Sigh.
Wash him up.
Get him down.
Wipe up the floor with a wash cloth, it will be clean for at least five minutes!!
Door bell rings, visiting teachers!
Poor Croix is rolling on the floor begging for attention.  Reminds me of my dogs, odd)
Kind visiting teacher plays with Croix.  I feel so, so bad as I see how desperately he just needs someone to tickle him.  Poor child!  I resolve stay on top of things better so I don't have to clean the entire house just so I can mop the floors!

Aside from the floors this is how the rest of my day went.
Visiting teachers walked out the door as Brent walked in the door.
Leave Brent to serve dinner for himself and Croix as I dash upstairs, change my clothes and get my massage room set up for my clients.
Come down stairs and say hi to Brent for five minutes before he has to leave for school.
Get myself some food.
Inhale food, since I only have ten minutes until my client is supposed to arrive.
Babysitter arrives.
Try and remember every thing I need to tell her.
Give her VERY specific instructions about giving Croix a bath.  "don't let him pick up the cup and and try and "drink" out of it with out emptying the water out first or he'll choke badly.  He also thinks he can stick his face in the water still so watch him close.  Shut him in the bathroom with you while you're drawing the water or else he'll try and walk down the stairs face first (a new and terrifying development for me)"
Wonder if having the sitter give Croix a bath is a good idea.
Client arrives.
Give an amazing massage.
Collect Croix who just loves on me, we miss each other.  Say a prayer of gratitude that he survived bath time.  My over protective first time Mom self can breathe a little easier.
Say goodbye to client and babysitter.
Get Croix milk.
Go put him in bed and try not to rush our bed time routine.
Croix is in bed.
Knock on the door.
Next client is here.
Give an amazing massage.
It's after 9 pm, I look out my window to see if the neighbors are still up.  The lights are still on so I hope they are.
Go make arrangements to bring the neighbors dog over to my house since I'll be gone from 10 am to 9 pm tomorrow and poor broken hearted Rusty is still having separation anxiety.
Come home same time Brent gets home.
Shower and tell him about my day.  I realized this day needs to be documented.  Not because it's and extraordinary day but because it's ordinary.  Because this is my life and some day I'll want to remember what it was like when I was working, taking care of a toddler, trying to figure out how to keep my house clean, and Brent was in school.
Current time 10:48 I'm exhausted!

6 comments:

Danielle said...

That's exhausting! I hope I get the opportunity to be that tired. I just saw a pic on your Facebook. We totally have the same table and we vacuum it too ;)!

Erin L said...

Sounds like life! One day when I was discouraged about how my sink was full of dishes and I didn't get anything done I wrote a list of everything I did do. That made me feel much better

Heather said...

Pretty sure you had a good reason for not calling me! ;) Doing anything with kids now is hard and requires excellent planning and execution. Too often I get sucked into nonessential things, FB, email, blogging, etc. Pretty much I need to stay off the internet and be productive! Exercise, read my scriptures, dinner, clean, etc. Obviously I am still working on it since I am sitting here typing, not dressed, kids have been down for a half hour... Leaving now. :)

Kalena and Justin said...

See this is why you need the Shark, no need to fill the sink before mopping.lol

Stephen and Erin said...

The first part of this post sounded like one of those If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books. If Im going to mop my floor, Ill want to clean off the clutter, If I have to vacuum the floor before I can mop it I better clean the counters off as well ect. Haha. Oh mother hood why do you constantly remind us of all the things we dont have time for.

Anonymous said...

You are hilarious! Your baby is adorable! I love reading your posts because you are so real, so good, and mostly because no matter what you love being a mom! So proud of you!