I’m posting a picture of our washer and dryer because today we need to talk about cleaning.
The other side of cleaning…the side I’m so embarrassed to even discuss because I feel so spoiled writing this post.
Can we talk about the help?
Those who help us clean our houses?
Ever since Catie was born M and I have had housekeepers come once a week to clean our house. During those first few months, while he was traveling and Catie wasn’t sleeping, they cleaned.
…when I was pregnant with twins and unable to bend or straighten or move, they cleaned.
…during those years of chasing around three little kids and trying to publish books, they cleaned
What a blessing these women have been to our family. We’ve become friends with all of them, learned about their families, learned to love their families, learned Spanish, and learned how to (I hope) make them feel appreciated.
It’s that part, it’s the part of making them feel appreciated, of trying to show them that I am not entitled and spoiled that has been the trickiest part for me. Because every week, the guilt of them coming nearly kills me.
In an effort to show them that I’m not lazy or spoiled, I clean for the housekeepers. Knowing that they’ll be in the corners of our closets, the back of our cabinets, and the crevices of our playroom, I clean it all. Not scrub like they will, but I tidy and straighten and organize those areas that aren’t.
It’s such a big job, that I spend a big chunk of the day before they come cleaning our house. The night before, M and I are like Navy SEALS in our efficiency to prepare the house for the maids.
“Kid Bathrooms?”
“Done. Pile of shoes off closet floor?”
“Yep. Dining room table?”
“Clear except homework.”
“In the morning. Our bathroom?”
And on and on.
Why all the pre-cleaning, you may ask.
It’s what we ask ourselves every single week too.
Three reasons:
1. It’s the guilt. Why should these women have to collect all the cups the kids have left all over the house? Including the odd liquid-to-solid ice experiments they’re currently doing. It’s probably my own insecurity that our family might be lazy and spoiled. Or that we aren’t so good at maintaining a clean house. So, we pretty much live that way six days a week. And then clean up our messes so the housekeepers don’t have to.
2. Which is reason number two. In the name of efficiency, the housekeepers can clean the house instead of tidying it. Clean-clean like scrub bathtubs and sinks instead of organizing shoes and dishes, like our family should be doing anyway.
3. It unclutters our house. Sort of. The weekly cleaning for the housekeepers actually drove me so crazy a couple years ago that we went without them for a few months. Big mistake. Oh, my how the black hole of the dining room got out of control.
And that’s the reason that we clean. Because, as it turns out, we all like a clean house, but we don’t have the discipline to do it (I’m speaking for M and me here. I think the kids like a dirty house). Until we think about the sweet housekeepers all up in the business of our corners and crevices the next day, and then we start cleaning.
For the help.
