A clean house, you say? Pardon? I’m pretty sure my house hasn’t been what my ‘pre-children’ self would consider clean, for roughly two years.
That being said, despite the chaos, I’m not willing to let things go completely. Firstly, because we’re going to have lots of company for the holidays and need things to be moderately presentable at any given time. And second, because with two kids who spend a large portion of their time licking every surface in our home (seriously… today I actually said “stop licking the floor” out loud), keeping things somewhat clean is a necessity.
So, I’ve started implementing a cleaning strategy in our home that helps me keep things both reasonably tidy AND helps me keep my sanity.
Want me to let you in on the secrets to my (marginal) success?!
1.Manage your expectations – your house isn’t going be tidy every minute of the day with kids running around, so let go of that dream now. And while we’re at it? Cut yourself some slack over the whole deal – trust me, those who love you and your kids won’t care about the extra clutter your kids bring to your home, and neither should you!
2. Make a daily cleaning plan – this one’s a lifesaver. I literally never have more than 20 mins at one time to do anything without a toddler hanging off my leg, or a baby screaming to be held. So don’t try to tackle a full day’s worth of cleaning all at once… it’s just not going to happen, and you’ll only end up feeling frustrated that you can’t get it all done. Instead, create a list of essential cleaning tasks you want to complete each week, and the break them out into daily tasks you can check off in a few mins. You’ll still get the critical tasks accomplished each week, and you can squeeze them in when you have a few spare minutes each day! For example:
Monday: Clean sink and countertops, wipe down stovetop
Tuesday: Clean toilets and bathroom sinks
Wednesday: Vacuum and mop main floor… Etc.
3. Invest in time-saving cleaning products – find the products that are going to help you maximize those 20 minute cleaning increments! We’re all about Black and Decker’s line-up of hand held power cleaners right now. We use the Grimebuster and Grimebuster Pro (it’s rechargeable!) in the kitchen – because they literally scrub through kitchen grime in like half the time. They even cut through cooked on bits from our cast iron pans! And we use the Scumbuster Pro and Scumbuster Pro Extend in the bathroom to quickly power clean our surfaces. The Scumbuster Pro Extend has it’s own telescoping pole that lets me reach every corner of our shower, while I have a baby in a carrier and a toddler running around the room… so that’s a freaking win! And lastly, we use the Black and Decker Lithium Pivot Vac to quickly suck up the daily messes that Em makes (cracker crumbs anyone?!) and it saves us from having to haul out our big vacuum every time. Seriously handy and surprisingly powerful! We’re all for finding the products that save you time and keeping them handy!
So that’s our game plan for getting through the Holidays (and the next five years) with a reasonably tidy house – here’s hoping it helps you too!
Note: We were provided product and compensation from Black and Decker prior to writing this post. All the opinions written here are always our own though, and we’d never lead you astray!
