Why I Clean My Apartment Every Night
If you enter
my apartment around 5 p.m., tread with care. You will likely find a city of
blocks hiding under seemingly cushy piles of fairy tutus. The stroller will
have turned into a puppet show theater with toddler chairs gathered around,
unicorns and Shopkins having a tea party off to the side. You’ll wade through a
sea of 8 ½ x 11” paper in more forms than you knew existed: crumpled, scribbled,
doodled, chopped, painted, folded, taped, stapled, rolled, but thankfully not
stuffed back into the printer. Those mystery globs on the carpet? Either marker
tips my 1-yr-old chewed off, hardened Play-Doh, or partially digested puzzle
pieces—your guess is as good as mine.
Sometimes I
wish I could wave my daughter’s princess wand to restore order to my home after
the kid tornado hits. On good days, I rally the troops: the kids and I all
pitch in to put away the forts, board games, books, stickers, snack containers,
and train tracks that we trip over on our way to the bath. When I was pregnant,
my mom suggested I use a rake for this job rather than bend over 100 times.
(Hey, not a bad idea!) Most days, however, my hero of a husband does a
super-speedy clean-up when he gets home from work as I’m feeding the kids
dinner. Fast-forward from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and the apartment transforms from
chaos back into sanity.
As a family
of six living in a 2-bedroom apartment, everything has its designated space. “Legos
don’t live on the dining room table,” I tell my son. “I can’t wait to see what
train track you build tomorrow,” I say as we dismantle the bridges and
turntables on the coffee table. Even though I know it will all come back out in
the morning, I want as much “tot-litter” as possible out of my sight when the
kids go to bed.
Sometimes I
think of my on-duty shift as 7 a.m. - 7 p.m., making post-bedtime my “me time”.
As a stay-at-home-mom, that serves as my separation between “work” (taking care
of my kids while they’re awake) and the three, precious kid-free hours in the
evening before I head to bed.
“What do you
do for 180 minutes?” wonders my numbers-obsessed son. I share about how I love
to cook, relax with Daddy, read, watch movies, shower, or hang out with
friends—all without tripping over toys.
Daily
recovering our apartment to protect my evening hours from the whirlwind of the
day is one of the healthy rhythms I try to model for my children. It is crucial
to demonstrate positive behaviors for our kids because they are watching and
imitating. Some ideas:
1. Read a book or magazine (Pick
something in print to avoid kids asking for screen time.)
2. Eat healthy food in a relaxed setting
(If they see you snacking at the fridge or counter in response to stress,
boredom, or lack of time, they will adopt that behavior.)
3. Speak kindly (Say please and
thank-you—to your kids too—and try not to yell or raise your voice when it’s
not merited.)
4. Set aside quiet time each day to
recharge (For me, this looks like a daily devotional with prayer and Bible
reading. Try stretching, meditating, drawing, or napping.)
5. Invest in friendships (Call a friend,
host a playdate with other mom friends, or plan a mom’s night out.)
6. Love on your husband (Greet your
hubby with a kiss when he comes home from work; go on a date without kids; and
when you have a conflict, use civil language with a goal of reconciliation.)
So, what do
healthy rhythms looks like in the lives of my 5-, 3-, and 1-year-olds? I aim
for a balance of the following to nurture their minds, bodies, and souls:
1. Unstructured, kid-directed play time
2. Structured school day or playgroups
with adult-directed time
3. Time spent participating in the tasks
of the day (school drop-offs & pick-ups, errands, grocery shopping, unpacking
and repacking lunch boxes, opening mail and packages, dinner prep)
4. Quiet, alone time to nap or veg out
5. Time spent doing something just for
them (reading or playing together, playground time, playdates)
6. Predictable bedtime routine (bath, dinner,
brush teeth, books, potty, prayer, lullaby, bed)
Kids need to
balance their school-day structure with time in the afternoon to create,
explore, pretend, snuggle, sing, draw, build, climb, laugh, and just be
together. Similarly, I need to balance my mom-duty daytime with a kid-free
evening to recharge and regroup for that 7 a.m. wake-up call.
This article was originally published on the Red Tricycle Spoke Contributor Network.
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