House Cleaning with A Three Year Old

OK, I know it's frustrating to try keep a house clean with a three year old, very active child underfoot. Especially when you're a young mother and you want to have a nice clean house for your husband to come home or really so he doesn't think you've been doing nothing but watch soap operas all day! I've been through those days three times! Now I'm a grandmother of three. But it's only the youngest grandchild that is underfoot. Jamie and Dallas live with us. We love having them here, even though we have to give up the idea of having a neat and clean house 24/7.

It's not as frustrating now that I'm a grandmother instead of 'just' a mother. I figure I'll never have this house (which is only 3 years old too) neat and clean like I thought it would be. I take care of Dallas while Jamie is at work.

So this is the way I have to clean...I have to stop a minute because Dallas is trying to take things off from my desk and I have to get her busy again. I thought that she was going to take a nap. Didn't happen that way. When I think it's quiet in the living room with her watching Max and Ruby on the TV, in she walked, still ready to go, go, go.

I took my phone away from her and she's interested in another show now. Maybe she'll fall asleep.

This morning I took all of the chairs out of the kitchen so I could clean it good. I wanted to clean the counter and the walls behind the counter first. I didn't see Dallas take my spray bottle off from the counter. She did and she was spraying the walls that I didn't plan on washing. Then she sprayed me before I could get the bottle away from her. Counter tops clean, walls behind the counter tops clean and the walls that I didn't plan on cleaning but had to (or have streaked walls)are all clean. I thought that I'd mop the floor next. She left the room and was playing train with my kitchen chairs in the family room. I got the bucket and mop out. I already swept and vacuumed the floor. She saw me! "Me, I help you, Mamo!" (all of her sentences start with 'Me' since they all start with 'I'. So I got her little mop out too. Here's where the patience of a grandmother come in. She's dunking her little mop in the bucket and mopping. I tell her to mop in front of the refrigerator. That doesn't last and neither does the water in her mop. She has to keep dunking it in the bucket because she says there's no water in it. I just keep mopping and eventually, even with her help, I get the floor all mopped.

She isn't ready to quit. And I still have two bathrooms to clean. So off we go to the little bathroom. The bathroom she uses now that she's finally potty trained. And the tub is full of bath toys because, naturally, that's where she takes her baths and, naturally, there are going to be toys in the tub...until she's a teenager. We start our mopping and, again, she thinks she needs more water. Since this room isn't big, she dunks her mop in and knocks the whole bucket over on the floor! Good use for the toilet besides her potty training! We both were laughing while we mopped up the floor, rinsing them out in the toilet bowl. (Clean water, by the way). Again, it's the grandma patience I used. That done, we left the room with a nice clean floor. I decided to do the other bathroom later. I said that I was practicing patience but I didn't say I was a saint. A kitchen and one bathroom is enough for today.

Now it's time to vacuum. This is the game that Dallas loves! I can clean the family room, dining room and living room all at the same time. I have to chase her through the house with the vacuum cleaner. She yells "Get me, Mamo!" and the chase is on. I get every spot of the floor clean! She runs to the couch in the family room and jumps up on it. I'm always right behind her. Then she jumps off the couch and takes off running again, yelling "Get me, Mamo!", into the living room and jumps on the couch there with me right behind her. This goes on for a while as I try to get other spots while I have her trapped on the couches. It works! The carpet are clean! Did I mention that I have to pick up Tinkertoy, blocks, babies and sippy cups before I can vacuum? I think that's enough work for today. Jamie will be home from work in a couple of hours. Denny is watching TV, Dallas won't take a nap today and I'm sitting down for a rest. Hey, I got my exercise. While other women are taking walks for their exercise, I'm running through the house with a vacuum cleaner in hand. That's like running on a treadmill and lifting weights, in my opinion. In closing this story, I hate to tell you but all of the Tinkertoy, blocks and babies will all be in their natural spots on the floors before Jamie can come home from work. I'm glad that Denny was home to see it because I'll bet Jamie thinks that I didn't do anything all day. And she comes home tired! Awww, poor girl.