Clean for a Reason

Never, ever, ever clean anything without a darn good reason. Why not?

If you do, life will give you a darn good reason to clean it. Here’s how it goes.

You say, “Hey, my little cherub hasn’t wet the bed in two weeks. I should wash the sheets.”

You wash the sheets.

That same night, the little cherub will most definitely wet the bed.

I’ve learned this the hard way in almost every aspect of homemaking and child-rearing. If I clean the tub, the little guy has a digging day at school and gets black with dirt up to his elbows. Did you know that dirt actually does leave a ring around the tub? Little black spots on the walls, too, if someone splashes.

If I mop the white tile floor in our front hall, it rains. (The white tile came with the house. We’re not masochists.) Do you have any idea how many footprints four people and a dog can leave on white tile in ten minutes?

If I vacuum and dust for no reason, a week later--just enough time for a little dust to settle--we’re having guests. If I make a really good list for the grocery store and get everything on it, the next day we’ll run out of something essential. I could go on and on and on.

So I’ve learned—I wait until I have to clean something before I do. The odds get much better that way. Also, if you clean while the kids are sleeping, things will stay clean for, like, ten whole hours! I’m more of a keep-it-clean-so-you-don’t-need-to-clean-it person anyway. (See? I’m not OCD, just lazy. ) It’s amazing how well those work together.

And I confess. One of my luxuries is to change the sheets and clean the master bath when my husband goes out of town for business. Then I have a few days of clean all to myself! Well, guess what happened after I put on new sheets last night?

Yep, I found little A. standing by the bed at three in the morning. “A spider jumped off the wall, crawled over my hand and my face, and tried to get out the shutters!”

Awww. You can sleep here, sweetie.

Yep. He slept soundly. Wet morning.

Sigh.