(Faking) Getting Back To Normal

My family has been sick. At least one member of the family has been ill since the end of February. I had a fever for almost 5 weeks. But we are finally, finally feeling better.

We think it was COVID-19, but lack of testing in our area makes knowing for sure nearly impossible right now. We had all the symptoms… even the new ones that are just coming out. It was rough, but we are doing much better now.

As you can imagine, being sick and quarantined has left our home in quite a state. The floors are filthy. There are papers littering every surface. Tools have once again taken over the kitchen, and boxes from every delivery clutter the living room in various stages of bing broken down and taken out to the trash. I feel like I am living in a dumpster.

So now it is time to clean.

Time to get back on top of the clutter and banish it so the house actually functions.

Cleaning has never been my strong suite. My parents were always a little too busy to instill those habits in my brother and I. Cleaning was more of an event for us than a daily routine. And my husband is from a home where cleaning and decluttering happened once a year, and you just lived with it otherwise. But having a baby, a preemie with a fragile immune system, has put cleaning in perspective for me. It is important and should be part of a daily routine.

Being stuck at home has really highlighted our progress (or lack there of) in keeping our space orderly. After all, it’s not like we can leave and escape the mess. But keeping things tidy and clean during the quarantine seems even harder than normal.

It feels like we ought to have more time. More time to clean, to organize, to declutter, and to wrangle the household under control. But all the extra responsibilities chip away at that time until we are left with effectively nothing. Homeschooling, remote therapy, creating space and time to be outside, fostering an environment for learning, and cooking every meal; all while somehow working is taking a toll. Something has to be put on the back burner, and somehow that thing always seems to be chores.

So how can we keep the house in order without going insane? How do we get those chores done without feeling overwhelmed by them?

Make it Manageable

I am not Martha Stewart. I am just a parent trying to keep her family healthy. My living room is not going to be featured in a magazine. We are never truly going to be the ideal, pintrest worthy view of minimalism. We live, grow, play, and thrive here. And all of those activities create messes.

You do not need to have everything pinterest perfect all the time. The only person you answer to is you. Own the level of clean your family can reasonably attain. Don’t apologize to guests for it. Don’t feel guilty about it. And don’t create unreasonable expectations for you or your family.

Remember, we don’t live to clean, we clean to live well.

Start Small

The house did not arrive in its current state in a day, it will not get clean in one either. Start by decluttering and cleaning a small, high value space. A space you see and use daily. Somewhere like your bathroom vanity, desk, dining table, or kitchen. Just clearing off one space and cleaning it to your definition of clean can make you feel loads better and motivate you to keep going.

Make it easy

Declutter

Decluttering makes cleaning much easier. If there is less stuff, then there is less to clean. While there is currently no one taking donations, the second hand market is booming. Gather everything you want to get rid of that still has value, and put it in an out of the way space. Then, when you have a moment, go through it and post the items to sites like letgo, craigslist, poshmark, etc. In the meantime the items are out of sight and out of mind.

There is some clutter, especially when you have small children, that is inevitable. Toys have a tendency to migrate through the house making it difficult to contain and control them. But there are ways of keeping them under control without spending hours a day policing them.

A note on toys:

Keeping toys wrangled is no easy feat. Consider using toy rotation to help keep things tidy and the child engaged.

Go through the toys and remove half of them. Every few weeks or so rotate the half that has been put away. Toy rotation makes cleaning much easier and keeps you from having to buy new toys since the rotated toys feel new when they come back into play. I have also found that fewer toys encourages my 18 month old to clean up by herself. She can clearly see where everything goes and often puts items away without prompting. With toys, less really is more.

Put things away

It is also worth carefully considering where “away” is. Just because your parents (or friends, or the internet) tell you something goes one place, does not mean that location works for your family.

I have a laundry basket next to the stairs because we generate so much laundry downstairs we need a place to contain it. Our nail clippers live in the kitchen, not the bathroom because we have a tendency to clip our nails when watching TV at night. Our shoes aren’t kept at the front door in the hall closet, they are in a basket near the back door because we spend more time in the back yard than we do going out.

The best place to put something away is where it is used. You (and your family members) are more likely to put something away if it takes less effort. So design your space accordingly.

Be an Opportunist

My father’s hands are never empty. I didn’t really understand why until I had my daughter. Things just have a tendency to move. As my father would go from one room to the next, he would notice anything out of place and put it back in the room he was heading to. Going upstairs? Take something that belongs upstairs with you. Heading to the kitchen? Grab the mustard that somehow made it into the toy box and put it back.

Create opportunities to be an opportunist as well. A basket at the foot of the stairs for things that need to go up can encourage people to bring things up when the basket gets full. Staging things in areas that gets them closer to where they should go can help as well. Often if the trash needs to be taken out, but we don’t have time to run it to the can, we will bag it all up and put it in our way in the garage. Then when we head to the car, it is easy to grab and throw in the bin.

Any spare moment can get you a little bit ahead. Waiting on the microwave? Load the dishwasher or wipe down the counters. Waiting on the little one to tie their shoes? Straighten the odds and ends in the area. Bath time? Clean the bathroom.

I am not saying you should take every opportunity to clean or straighten. You need to relax and play too. But if you can capitalize on the random moment here or there, you can get things done little by little.

Enlist Help

You do not live alone. You did not make this mess alone. You should not clean it up alone.

Babies can begin to learn to clean up after themselves as soon as they understand how to put something in a container. At that age you are just setting up routines. You can encourage the little one to put the toy back in the toy box when they are finished with it. If they don’t, that is okay, you can model putting the toy away. As they grow and begin to understand, you can say things like “are you done playing with this toy? It looks like you have moved on. Let’s put this toy away so you have more space to play.” They will understand and start to help you clean up most of the time. For older kids you can just help them get into the pattern of cleaning as they go with verbal reminders.

One word of caution if you are teaching a baby/ young toddler to help you clean: you may find things in odd places. When we first started having our baby help us clean up, we had one toy box. It was easy for her to understand where things went because there was only one place for things to go. She extrapolated that idea to mean “anything I touch or play with goes in the box.” So the TV remote, car keys, dishes, spoons, and books would all wind up in the toy box. If we couldn’t find something, the first place we looked was the toy box and 9 times out of ten it was there. The baby had put it away.

But the kids aren’t the only ones who should be helping. Hold a meeting with all adults/ teens in the family and discuss what everyone thinks “clean” is. Once you can all agree on a definition of clean, make a plan to get and keep the house clean. If everyone agrees on what they should be doing and why, getting and keeping the house clean will be easier for everyone.

A clean house frees up my mind to create. So when I am getting back in the swing of things that is where I start. What are you doing to get back in the groove? Comment below.

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