Cleanliness Takes a Backseat to Godliness
My sister is a superb housekeeper. She is perfectly organized with a daily cleaning plan, keeping her house spotless at all times in spite of the two little ones playing at her feet. If you go to her house on a Saturday, you can be certain that her bathrooms will be spotless, because she would rather eat dirt than go a Friday without scrubbing toilets. I’d like to think I deserve some of the credit for her excellence in this area, since I am reasonably sure that after sharing a room with me for some 15 years, she developed a severe allergy to untidiness.
It’s true...for the first 26 years or so of my life cleanliness was not high on my list of priorities. Anyone who shared a living space with me during this time will attest to the fact that bombs routinely DID go off in my room...or so it appeared. Cleaning it was usually a week long adventure that necessitated me bidding my loved ones good-bye and venturing forth in an excursion something akin to an archaeological dig.
And THEN I met my husband. Super clean freak extraordinaire. I’m not sure if my turnaround was my attempt to convince him that the dowry was worth every penny, or if a little maturity kicked in somewhere along the way; however, I managed to clean up my act-literally! That is...until the past year. What used to be a tidy, organized and “adult looking” home has now morphed into The Place Where Toys go to Die. Every room is an explosion of KID in one way or another and it takes every moment of my “free time” to keep up. While I used to sweep, mop and spit-shine my kitchen every night after dinner, nowadays it’s all I can do to keep the dishwasher going and sweep up the fish crackers BEFORE I step on them. My windows and walls bear witness to the little people running around leaving greasy handprints in their wake. Between the colossal amounts of laundry generated by a family of four and three bathrooms full of potty training paraphernalia...well, enough said. Chances are, if you are a mom, you have your own sob story in this area and I need not try to convince you that sometimes motherhood and cleanliness seem to be somewhat mutually exclusive.
When I was young, a stitched verse hung on the wall in my Mom’s bedroom. I loved the picture of the young looking mother settled in her rocking chair, her babe snuggled in her arms. The words to the poem quickly became etched on my memory; likely due to its simple rhyme and meter...nowadays its meaning is what makes the words so enchanting.
“Cleaning and scrubbing can wait ‘til tomorrow,
For babies grow up...we’ve learned to our sorrow,
So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,
I’m rocking my baby...and babies don’t keep.”
Now if you’ll excuse me, although I fully intended to clean my oven this afternoon; I suddenly have the urge to get my priorities straight. I’m sure there’s a rocking chair around here with my name on it, and I can bet that it won’t take much to find someone willing to curl up in it with me. I suppose there’ll be plenty of time for cleaning and scrubbing someday all too soon...when the pitter patter of little feet in this house is but a whisper in my memory.
It’s true...for the first 26 years or so of my life cleanliness was not high on my list of priorities. Anyone who shared a living space with me during this time will attest to the fact that bombs routinely DID go off in my room...or so it appeared. Cleaning it was usually a week long adventure that necessitated me bidding my loved ones good-bye and venturing forth in an excursion something akin to an archaeological dig.
And THEN I met my husband. Super clean freak extraordinaire. I’m not sure if my turnaround was my attempt to convince him that the dowry was worth every penny, or if a little maturity kicked in somewhere along the way; however, I managed to clean up my act-literally! That is...until the past year. What used to be a tidy, organized and “adult looking” home has now morphed into The Place Where Toys go to Die. Every room is an explosion of KID in one way or another and it takes every moment of my “free time” to keep up. While I used to sweep, mop and spit-shine my kitchen every night after dinner, nowadays it’s all I can do to keep the dishwasher going and sweep up the fish crackers BEFORE I step on them. My windows and walls bear witness to the little people running around leaving greasy handprints in their wake. Between the colossal amounts of laundry generated by a family of four and three bathrooms full of potty training paraphernalia...well, enough said. Chances are, if you are a mom, you have your own sob story in this area and I need not try to convince you that sometimes motherhood and cleanliness seem to be somewhat mutually exclusive.
When I was young, a stitched verse hung on the wall in my Mom’s bedroom. I loved the picture of the young looking mother settled in her rocking chair, her babe snuggled in her arms. The words to the poem quickly became etched on my memory; likely due to its simple rhyme and meter...nowadays its meaning is what makes the words so enchanting.
“Cleaning and scrubbing can wait ‘til tomorrow,
For babies grow up...we’ve learned to our sorrow,
So quiet down cobwebs, dust go to sleep,
I’m rocking my baby...and babies don’t keep.”
Now if you’ll excuse me, although I fully intended to clean my oven this afternoon; I suddenly have the urge to get my priorities straight. I’m sure there’s a rocking chair around here with my name on it, and I can bet that it won’t take much to find someone willing to curl up in it with me. I suppose there’ll be plenty of time for cleaning and scrubbing someday all too soon...when the pitter patter of little feet in this house is but a whisper in my memory.
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