Confessions of a lazy housewife

Raise your hand if you've ever had a dirty glass (or plate or serving utensil) that just wouldn't come clean so you left it in the dishwasher for load after load.  Raise the other hand if you finally just gave up and threw it away.

Operation Bathroom

When my brother and I were kids I would always get stuck cleaning the bathroom that we shared.  Every so often my mom would tell him to clean it but then he would say, and I quote, "But I don't know how to clean the bathroom!" and then she would tell me to do it.  Until recently, if you asked my mom about this she would deny that it ever happened.  Not that long ago though my brother told her it was true, that he had been faking not knowing how to use a rag so that I would be the one who always had to clean the bathroom.  He still brags about it to this day.  Butthead.

I was thinking about this yesterday.  I don't know why, maybe I was just in a mood to contemplate injustice or something.  But I was thinking about it and it occurred to me that I should make sure that BOTH of my children were skilled in the art of bathroom cleaning.  That way neither of the kids would have to grow up with the painful, scarring memory of being forced to do slightly more than their fair share of the work!*

Operation Bathroom was born.  I even facebooked it.  "I am going to recruit the kids to help clean the bathrooms. It's high time these little monsters started pulling their weight around here. Check back in five minutes for an update about how one of them managed to injure themselves with a toilet brush."**
 
Ahaha.  I'm so funny.  I didn't really expect one of them to get hurt.  I knew everything would be fine!

I gathered up the cleaning supplies, went into the bathroom and called for the kids to join me in there.  Now, most of the time the second I set foot into the bathroom the kids are right outside the door, rattaling the doorknob, shoving notes under the door, asking me questions they could have asked during any of the other 23.9 hours a day we spend together but decided they needed answered at that very second.***  Not this time though.  I had to beg, plead and use a Very Serious Tone to get them in there.

Once we got started though it went pretty well.  I showed them how to shake the rugs out on the front porch and they liked that.  Elle enjoyed sitting on the bathroom counter and wiping off the mirror.  Joseph seemed to have fun scrubbing the toilet.  It was cute. I liked watching them get so into it.  So when Joseph asked if we could have some music on to clean by I was all to happy to oblige him.

I walked into the kitchen and turned some music on the jacked-up "laptop".  Then I opened the recently finished running dishwasher and pulled out the racks so the dishes could dry.  Then I went into the laundry room off the kitchen so that I could grab a couple of cleaning supplies I forgot.  Then I walked out of the laundry room.

That's when Operation Bathroom turned into Operation Disinfect Everything In The Entire Effing Kitchen.  Joseph was standing in the middle of the kitchen.  Dancing. Wildly and gleefully waving his arms around.  With his left arm waving right over the open dishwasher.  And in his left hand?

You guessed it.

The still wet and dripping toilet brush.

Because I am a Very Good Mom I didn't get too upset.  I just gagged for about half an hour then calmly explained that it's a toilet brush, not a throw your hands in the air and wave em like you just don't care brush and perhaps we should use that as a clue as to where the brush belonged.  He seemed to understand and in fact I think he felt a little bad.

He's never going to be allowed to help clean the bathroom again though.

I hate to break it to my brother but he's no longer the king of getting out of stuff.  "I don't know how to clean the bathroom" can't hold a candle to "I can't help clean the bathroom because Tik Tok might come on and my spontaneous outburst of joyous dancing may lead to poo water being flung all over your kitchen."

*Although really it wasn't slightly because my brother was always finding ways to get out of doing work.  I started doing my own laundry when I was 9.  I think my brother started when he was 27.

** My brother's real and actual response to that was "Don't let them snowball you with any of that "I don't know how to clean the bathroom" junk. Take it from me, that line is bull."

*** Best thing yelled to me through the bathroom door in this past week?  "Mama, I'm going to eat five or ten pieces of candy while you're in privacy ok?

Two years ago today I added a chapter in Joseph's adoption story.

Can you cook pasta in the bathtub?

Our dishwasher is broken.

This is not a good situation for us. I am not a Washing Dishes By Hand type of person. Under the best circumstances I am a Load The Dishwasher Grudgingly type of person. Under the worst circumstances I am a Let's Drop All The Dishes On The Floor On Purpose So They Break And We Don't Have To Wash Them And Also Let's Just Throw Away The Silverware And Eat With Our Hands type of person.

We're in a bit of a "financial lull" right now so when the dishwasher broke we decided we had two option. First, we could declare it an emergency and break into the emergency fund. Second, we could deal with it for a short time and wait till things were a little less lean, cash-wise. Guess what option I was pushing for. Now guess what one we chose.

For the first couple of days my strategy was to lay on the couch and look very tired so that Jesse would see what an emergency the situation was. This didn't work. He didn't notice the pile of dishes in the kitchen and he didn't notice me sighing dramatically on the couch.

My second strategy was to just wash certain dishes. Plates and silverware aren't that bad to wash. I decided to do those and then skip the pots and glasses. That worked fine until my children were reduced to drinking milk out of measuring cups.

Now my strategy is to wash the fracking dishes but to really, really hate it.

I wish I was as quick a thinker as Jesse. His strategy is to wait until I start a load of dishes and then say "Oh! I was just about to do the dishes!" and then sneak out of the room. The man is a genius.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to take my dishpan hands and go wash some pots otherwise I will be forced to cook dinner by holding the food in my hands and waving it over the hot stove. I don't want to do that three nights in a row.

Three years ago today Joseph liked Double Dare.
Four years ago today Joseph was cute and I was pregnant and boring.

Accountability

I've got to clean up my craphole of a kitchen. I'll let you know if I make it out alive.

Edited - Now I can breath again. I think I'll treat myself and open one of my 20 bottles of wine tonight. (See them back there in the corner?) Now that I can actually get to them and all it seems like a shame not to open them.

I just don't get my husband

In my house we have deal. I make dinner, Jesse cleans up afterwards. In the past Jesse thought that "cleaning up" meant "putting the leftovers away ...... sometimes". Over the course of our 8+ years of marriage though I have managed to nag and harass lovingly redirect him so that now he does a much better job. He clears the table, puts leftovers away and sometimes loads the dishwasher. It's my job to unload the dishwasher and if I haven't done it he doesn't pick up my slack and do it for me. The dishes just sit there until I get to them. Ok, fair enough. Unloading is my job and I'll take care of it. And while I'm at it I'll go ahead and load up the dirty dishes when I'm done.


But here's the thing. Husband, if you are reading this (and I know that you might, a week or two from now) there is something you need to know. If you want me to load the dishwasher then you're going to have to do your part. No more leaving food on the plates so that it hardens into a crust and becomes permanently bonded to the plate. If you do that again I'm going to load the dishwasher with the food still on the plates and then the food will come off and clog up our crap-ass dishwasher and you'll have to try to fix it again like you did that one time when you thought you could just vacuum up all the pieces of food only you didn't realize that there was a puddle of water in the bottom of the dishwasher and you vacuumed up the water and broke the vacuum cleaner. And nobody wants that.