I’d like to think I’m not the only person out there who’s house cleaning standards dropped somewhat with the advent of children. Not to say that my home was ever a Mecca of dazzling surfaces and rarely was furniture ever moved – even in spring. Nowadays though, the entire fiasco generally consists of an hour and a half flying around the house with a cloth and a hoover once a week on a Tuesday afternoon. Occasionally a dustpan gets involved.
Last week however, my annual leave petered out at work with three whole weeks left to go. Drastic action had to be taken in order to fulfil my lacklustre yet obsessive need to maintain my own half-arsed standards. Yes, that’s right, I enlisted the assistance of the boy.
As an incentive (!) to miss out on a post pre-school play date I informed him that there was a little friend called Henry at home waiting to play with him. Intrigued, he went along with my charade.
Back home Henry appeared in all his red and black glory from the cupboard under the stairs. JJ examined him from all angles before demanding an explanation. Apparently he was expecting a red Henry. Henry is only half red. This is the kind of obsessive compulsive behaviour you come to expect from a pre-schooler.
After some persuasion I managed to convince him that this would be fun! (And allow me to crack on with the beef casserole). You can see where this story is leading can’t you? Yep, ten minutes later I was shuffling along the corridor noting the enormous amount of dried mud JJ had somehow managed to miss and he was shouting “Mummy, you’ve missed a bit” from his perch on the sofa, Chuggington blasting out of his froggy earphones.
Ah well, one week, three bits of fluff less for me to deal with, a trained up child… Hmmm, perhaps some more delegation is required here; next week, the story of EJ’s love of sink cleaning (who knew one small patch of sink would require three quarters of a bottle of Fairy Liquid though? True story…)
ha! i used to do this with my daughter!
It seemed like a good idea at the time and maybe if I keep him at it eventually it might even actually reduce my workload!!
Love this, its genius!!!
Nothing like a bit of child labour!
Totally, now I just need to wait for Arthur to become the age where he can be useful haha………… Maybe I’ll get one of those baby mop outfits for him!?
I’m not sure I’m aware of the baby mop outfits but it sounds about right!
I think they are from china, I’m not sure it’s particularly child friendly and it’s probably meant to be used as joke gifts for people…….I’ll look into it!!
Ha ha I love this, get them started young! And no you are not the only one whose standards have slipped since having kids! Xx #theordinarymoments
They’ll slip even more when you’ve got two Caroline! X
My girls quite frequently “do” the hoovering… I usually have to do it again afterwards, but I figure its all good training!!! 🙂 #TheOrdinaryMoments
Exactly Claire! If they find themselves with a hoover in their hands on a regular basis then it won’t seem weird later on!
Hahaha, this is fab! Its a rear occasion when my Moo asks to do it!
Thanks! This is clearly a popular trend…
Both my daughters seem to love the hoover. My big girl helps hoover as she has a pretend Dyson and my little one just follows it around! Very strange. But good to start them young I say. 😉
Funny JJ used to be scared of the noise when I hoovered – I sometimes completely freaked him out by hoovering around him when he was in the Jumperoo! (Bad Mummy!)
Enlist kids whenever you can I say. Thankfully my boy loves the hoover and always wants to finish off for me. Great, I say, here you go!
🙂
ha ha fabulous tactics! My boys are both obsessed with the hoover but they are young and there is plenty of time to go off it yet…
Yeah, he’s gone from being scared of it to wanting to fiddle about with it but not much actual dirt has been removed from any carpets as far as I can see!
I NEED TO TRY THIS!!!
You so do!!