Sticky Situation

I took an entire day to clean my house on Monday. Cleaning ourselves free of sinister Sippy cups that claim to be spill proof, leak proof, and splatter proof. My 1 and a half year has proven none of them toddler proof.

After the house was spotless I unleashed our professional sampling of three new cups all with their great claims. One literally was Sippy proof, no drink would come out of it. To my OCD side this appealed to me greatly, but thinking about the Wayne County Department of Children’s Services I took it away. Unfortunately, the two others cups leaked like creeks after heavy rain storms. Sweet sticky apple juice once again stuck on the ceramic tile of the kitchen and bathroom, the dark walnut living room floors, and politely dotting the once all-beige carpet in the bedrooms.

These lying cups have brought out a weakness in me. An inability to just be laid back about letting my shoes stick to the kitchen floor slowing us all down for a half a second. Those dirty dots of sugary juice sprayed all over our home makes me feel like a failure and like I don’t have it all together. When I’m sticking to my own couch, I can’t even pretend that I am successfully balancing work and family life with a graceful ease as I am using a shoe horn to get myself unseated from the now fermented juice. Cleaning or always keeping the house clean gives the very false illusion that we could be on a magazine cover for Garage Sale Weekly. Although my heart melts at the thought of this perfection, it just isn’t true. Just try to come over and use the toilet without a plunger.

I have always felt the need to keep the house tidy for other people, and was literally blown away at how difficult it became when we came home from the hospital after delivering my son. My husband had to leave right away for work and we had family coming in town to see the baby so I didn’t miss a beat. I had been in the hospital giving birth of course and was kept extra time for preeclampsia. So there I was going on no sleep and ready to scrub down the shower. I had the bathroom window open hoping the fumes wouldn’t get to my new baby. I realize now I should have been using the time to rest and that our family was coming to help not to critique our shower. And it should have been clean enough after I was cleaning a week earlier while on “bed rest.”

So no matter how many articles I read on balancing work and family life, I just think it is a challenge. It’s a challenge to remember to take it easy on the cleaning. No matter how stuck I may feel I can’t be as stuck nor as sticky as the terribly confused creators of no-spill Sippy cups.