to think that you can either have a clean, tidy and uncluttered house OR happy children but not both?

[GreenTeapot]

Or can you manage both? How do you do it?

we are clean but not tidy, the house looks great till ds1 and 2 arrive home its their home too, just like it to be tidy first and last, but no one wheres outdoor footwear inside ugh, just think what they have been walking in all day

"Crock. Of. Shite"
"WTF"
Wit? Wow, real Oscar Wilde stuff. Seriously I'm impressed, but not in a good way.

Glitterknickaz, you sound nice. Don't let it get you down. My friend has the tiniest, untidiest house I've ever seen. It's so run-down that ivy grows though the walls and the mad dogs keep ransacking the kitchen bin. She's the most popular mother I know because children instinctively know that they can be completely relaxed and get on with playing without somebody getting all chippy about 'shoes inside'. I'm sure children think you're nice too :) and that's more important than what some mothers might think.

I've got one that says "my other house is cleaner" :-)

that would be the fantasy house when the kids leave home :-) It is actually easier to keep tidy since the X left though, he was a total junk buying nut - all sorts of 'useful' things he'd use once then put somewhere where he didn't have to see it! his study was pristine but he'd drop dental floss on the bathroom floor for the cleaning fairy to deal with and never put his dishes in the dishwasher. I have taken tons of 'stuff' to the charity shops and am slowly making my way round the house decluttering!

Minky, no one has said that show home owning knicker-twisters who don't let their kids make a mess don't exist, just that tidying up after the activity is generally simple, and keeping the place tidy means you can find your paint and it isn't sitting next to the sink dried out from last time.

LeQueen you are a goddess! Love your description on page 1! Can you come and be my neighbour?!

Oh, were you being funny? I do apologise.

Do either of you wish to borrow my handbag?

minkey ...oscar wilde really ???

Now i lurves old oscar as much as the next person , but why bring him into this ? unless you making comparisons with the dorean gray story ? beautiful on the surface , but not much use on the inside ? Are the houses supposed to be like dorean or his picture ? flawed with scars of life ???

ahem. Of course it is perfectly possible to have a clean,tidy house and happy children/family with a little bit of housework now and again.

Lequeen ..... i love it that ,your a writer ....Very creative !

getorff have loads of handbags thanks , and most of them contain bricks !

LeQueen - interesting you have lived in all sorts of houses and always just as tidy. Same with us. From a two bed flat with DS1, through a 2 up 2 down terrace house, then several houses of varying sizes to the thing we live in now.

Always the same. Its a state of mind. Not where you live that matters.

lequeen you can borrow my dd4 ... not spanish either , but can speak spanish , must be child prodiegy lol

Surely like most things in life, a balance is best

A cleanish house that is not too cluttered but also one in which children can play freely and be creative is desirable.

I grew up in a neat freak house, I hated it. But mine was an extreme example. I wasn't allowed to paint or bake because it made too much mess

To some extent it comes down to personality, everyone is different. As long as the kids aren't affected negatively in any way then I don't think it makes too much difference. And kids are different too.

Wit. Oscar Wilde. sigh.
This is all getting a bit like a 'Mum's Gone To Iceland'.

Christ knows where I got it from but I thought Leq owned a hairdressers????? [losing the plot emoticon]

Anyhoo...I am a writer. I do it full time. And I'll be honest it is a messy business, no getting round it.
I'm editing at the mo so have three sets of the WIP laid out in the study. Two marked up, and one clean...that's over 1000 pieces of paper aaaaahhhhgggggg.
Then there are the notes/research/assorted aide memoirs.
While this process goes on (six weeks usually) I like to leave it all out so I can pick it up immediately at any second. But I do have a study sop can close the door

Le queen ,
actually im rather glad your not Oscar Wilde , since hes been dead for a very long time , and it would be rather odd having you on mumsnet , being a notorious dead author .....

I thought it was in retaliation to me saying you have wit.

that old quote " sarcasm is the lowest form of wit", was an oscar ,one i think.

nice to see someone else had a secondary school education too .

Now THAT is funny.

.... and todays lesson is .....

somepeople are tidy
some people are not

and some people cant spell properly

But ... if oscar had wrote mums gone to iceland , what would it be like ?

OOOOHHH GOTHIC ADVERTS !!!!