My House Sucks And So Do I

I've never been a neat freak. I don't claim to be one. But I did imagine I'd keep a fairly clean house once Norah was born.

Wrong.

It's not like we never clean; it seems like we're in a perpetual state of cleaning. But life is faster and more efficient than our cleaning abilities. I put the books away. Norah rips them off the shelf ten seconds later. I wash the dishes. Five hundred dirty ones appear out of nowhere. Ryan picks up the living room. Toys get up out of their designated spots and walk back to the middle of the room. My mom comes over to help clean the kitchen. An elusive and rare indoor tornado sweeps through the house, destroying all evidence of cleanliness. The laundry pile has been crowned Mount Doom.

We can't have people pop over. We can't even have people over with a reasonable amount of notice. I'd need at least a week to get the house down to "not that embarrassing."

So, quit bitching and do something, right? That's what I tell my students (but in a nicer way). Here's the plan: 15 minutes of cleaning each night, each. We take turns, so that Norah is distracted by the non-cleaning parent. Weekends we up the time to at least 30. This should keep up us in maintenance mode. I will report back with results. Operation: Pop-ins Welcome.