I like things to be tidy, I'd love them to be clean as well but I mostly settle for tidy as a minimum! Before I sit down I have to pack the toys away in the lounge -I can't relax until it's all in it's place. I feel like I am endlessly tidying up, moving from one ungodly mess to another. I never let it get the better of me though, I just do a lot of sighing and exclaiming about having to constantly tidy.If you dropped in without notice, this is the view you would be confronted with on most days: a couple of overflowing baskets of clean washing that have managed to migrate to the lounge, awaiting sorting. Spread across the lounge room floor is an assortment of puzzle pieces, felt dolls, dinosaurs and plastic food. Mixed in with this might be mashed banana, biscuit crumbs and usually an upturned sippy cup of milk seeping into the rug.
Moving into the kitchen...every cup, dish, pot and pan is on the sink and the kitchen table is covered in an assortment of drawings, glitter-encrusted pieces of bark, junk mail and hairclips. The chairs have a furry cushion of fluff under each leg, some stray bits of broccoli are wedged under the portable high-chair and Lola's edge of the table is glazed with hardened jelly.
Beside the table is a pile of newspapers that Lola has strewn around and in the corner the tupperware cupboard has exploded onto the floor. The kids' drawing table is awash in a sea of scribble-covered papers and crayons and Peppa Pig stickers are dotted across the floorboards. DHs work desk is a towering pile of text books, blank CDs and computer hardware.
The laundry floor generally has a fine coating of sand and an overflowing basket of washing. The bathroom cupboard is often spilling flannels, bandaids and hairbands from every drawer and dog fur tumbleweeds drift merrily down the hall pursued by sultanas and lego bricks.
It never stays that way for long though, if I left it like this for more than a day we would only be able to leave the house through the windows.
Rebecca ox
