i could cry!!

[IAmBooyhoo]

eugh!

i visited my aunt today. her home is immaculate. now, yes it is brand new (moved in 3 weeks ago, new build) and yes she doesn't work and yes she has a partner to help her and no she doesn't have small children or pets but my god that house was clean. and to make matters worse, it was a surprise visit ( i know, i know i should have called first) so she had no warning and no time to tidy up but there wasn't even a water mark on her sink. everything was sitting perfectly like just out of a magazine shoot. even her teenagers' bedrooms were sitting perfectly as though they had never been slept in. not even a hairbrush sitting on the dressing table.. she showed me round the house and i admired everything a set of drawers that she had, assuming they had been bought for the house. "no", she said, "they were bought when dd3 was in nursery, so about 13 years ago" there wasn't a scratch or nail varnish stain on it. same with all the rest of the furniture. this woman raised six children. how is that possible that her furniture is all still so immaculate? it has made me want to sell recycle all my scuffed and stained furniture and start all over again (couldn't afford to) but i know that as soon as a new coffee table even looked at my 2 year old it would develop a scratch. how is that fair? i can say now with 100% certainty that my home will never ever reach that level of perfectness, no matter how much i want it to. i feel really crap about my 'well worn' home now.

I'm so sorry. iPad automatically corrected clutter to litter!

there is litter too (over flowing bins)

i go in peaks and troughs (is that the right word) so somedays i know exactly what i need to do and i crack on with it but those days are far outnumbered by the days where i just feel like warming a bowl of soup is all i can acheive. i am getting better in that the house is not as bad as it used to be and there are more tidy days than there used to be. i just would love to get to a point where that was the norm if that makes sense.

we have tidied the hall (dumping ground for everything) and we are having a bite to eat now. i find once i get started i am happy to keep going. i think it's the thought of starting that i find so hard.

Booy - I feel the same too :) It is liberating to have a clean & tidy home - one that invites you to do stuff, to have people call in, to go out when you please and not feel like you should be cleaning! One that makes you feel like you can choose what to do (play a game with the kids, read a book, do some baking) and not one that screams 'fecking clean me would you!!'

Have you made a dent?

The other thing is to really really look at what you bring in to the house. Whether that's 'bargains' from a charity shop, or 2 for 1 items when you only wanted 1 or just the crap that comes through the post. Be discerning about what is let in!

bringing stuff in isnt a big contributor for us as we are broke. the biggest culprit for the mess is my 2 year old. he is full on constantly. he doesn't nap and just cannot sit down for more than the 5 minutes it takes for him to eat. t can be really hard to supervise him all the time and clean up the trail he has left behind on top of the normal household cleaning so i choose to supervise as much as i can. he does thing in a flash that take ages to clean, like throwing clothes out of the wardrobe, emptying the bins, tearing up toilet paper an throwing it down the stairs, spreading toothpaste around the bathroom. the list goes on. i feel like i am constantly catching up on his mess but he creates itt quicker than i can clear it.

Clearing up after a toddler is the most pointless, soul destroying job ever. I just don't do it. I let my DS run riot throughout the day then make a half-hearted attempt to clean it up in the evening. One thing I have done though, is never to let him in the bathroom unless he's having a bath (too much potential for carnage!) never allow him to have a roll of toilet paper and never to allow him to open the kitchen cupboards (apart from a couple of "designated" cupboards that he can't make too much mess with). That at least cuts down the horror :)

there are days when i dont do it, but that just means i have more to do the next day. i have put a stairgate on his bedroom door for night time (he was sneaking out) but his Dbro 'helps' him escape. they had a habit for a while of sneaking down in the morning before i was even awake and putting whatever wet and sticky stuff they could find all over the kitchen. thankfully that has stopped but there are still signs of it, like paints on the kitchen chairs and table and walls. ds1 is getting better at not letting ds2 out of the room and i try to keep all the bathroom liquids in my room but even today while i was clening the kitchen ds1 called down to say ds2 was playing with my make-up. i think i need locks on everydoor.

I can honestly say that it gets easier to clean up and keep ontop of it when all the kids are in school. Just keep going til then!
I force my kids to do a 50 min tidy. I find a film and then pause it, after 50 mins have gone film goes back on, tea is made and cake is eaten in a far cleaner tidier house.

thank you notits (good name). he starts nursery next tuesday for 2 hours 4 days a week so i hope i will be able to get a good bit done in the time he is away. i have to start using my evenings though. i just sit infront of the laptop watching programmes once they go to bed and before i know it it's time to sleep. ijust feel like falling in a heap though once i get them down.

Oh God - it is definitely hard when you have kids like that!! I just don't have the tolerance levels for that kind of crap, so it wouldn't happen - even if it meant locking them in the garden shed

You must really be looking forward to nursery But 2 hours?? He needs to be there longer, even if it means fewer days. (or did you mean 4 hours 2 days a week?). It is hard to make yourself 'do stuff' in the evenings when you have been chasing mess monsters around all day, it's exhausting!! Maybe go out for the day so he can't make any mess

We we've established one thing
She is NOT a mner

OP, your aunt has a small army of magic elves hidden in her cupboards.

They come out at night and wave a magic duster, and Magazine Home happens.

I'd have the same, but my cupboards are overflowing with crap, so they can't get in.

Shame.

I have just spent the past 2 weeks tidying our house for people coming on Easter Sunday and it was still a bomb site. I love immaculate houses, they just seem so calm and serene but I can never get mine anywhere near that state. I would love to have someone appear at the door and not feel embarrassed by the state of my house.

I think the little and often approach seems to be the key, but like everything in my life I leave it until the last minute and scramble around like mad. I'm considering having hypnotherapy for my procrastination

the nursery only does the 2 hour session for his age as it is the pre- preschool year. i applied for another nursery that does 4 hour session, 5 days a week but he didn't get in there. tbh i'm glad of anything!!

no i dont think she is a MNer.

i'm still in shock at her 13 year old chest of drawers that haven't got as much as a scratch on them. i was telling my mum last night and she said, "yep that sounds just like aunty X" so i have no doubt that the drawers are the age she said they are.

trixy yes it is the calmness and serenity i crave too.

off to do some more while i'm feeling energetic.

next you will be telling us OP she doesnt eat chocolate or ever have PMS!!!

my house is most definately lived in

i had a friend as a child who s mum would puff up cushions if you moved and when i had a sandwich there she had the ewbank out the second we had finished eating

i cant be doing with that level tidy.i want enjoy my kids and relax

someone said to me once"i want my kids to remember childhood as being fun and spontantanious.getting dirty and laughing..they wont hark back longingly reminiscing how much time mum spent scrubbing the lav and cleaning the kitchen"

i live with this mantra[bugrin]