Know When To Skip the Housework

I've heard a lot of advice recently about not cleaning my house.

* the dishes can wait, the babies can't *

* a clean house is the sign of a boring person *

* Don't cook. Don't clean.

No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum.*

~ Joan Rivers

* Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like 

shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. *

I was contemplating all this cleaning vs. enjoying life while drinking my coffee one morning this week.

I was definitely on the "enjoying life" side of things instead of "cleaning up after life."

Watching my young son toddle about rewarded and warmed my heart. 

The girls were occupied cleaning their room. Usually I'm doing morning chores too. 

But this morning, I heartily agreed that chores could wait. 

What could be more important than soaking up this moment?

But then I realized it was because of "chores" that this moment existed.

Without housework, the same scene would be impossible.

If the kitchen wasn't cleaned, my french press would be too dirty for my morning cup of coffee.

And my mug would be dirty too.

If the 7 loads of laundry weren't folded the night before, I wouldn't be sitting in this chair. It would be piled high with a mound of clothes instead.

If the girls didn't know how to clean their room and didn't expect the morning ritual, they wouldn't be occupied so I could read stories to just one quick-sitting boy.

If it the room hadn't been dusted and vacuumed in the last week, I would be annoyed at how dirty everything was instead of how the sunlight peered through Rem's light locks.

Chores are needed.

I think the idea is not to get obsessed with keeping a perfect house, 

but some regular cleaning and upkeep is absolutely necessary.

I like the quote, "My house is clean enough to be healthy, and dirty enough to be happy."

Yes, there were chores waiting while I relaxed in the joy of these moments. It's never done if you have children and/or eating going on in the house.

I follow a daily cleaning list called the Motivated Moms Chore Chart (see the link in the sidebar). I didn't come up with it, but think it is brilliantly compiled. Chores are divided into small tasks that I can complete in little bits of time throughout my day. 

Everything eventually gets done and everyone is at peace. Even my dust bunnies.

Home should be welcoming and we should never be a slave to needing things perfect. Its the "Mary vs. Martha" scenario all the time. Serve/cook/clean or soak up a precious moment?

Remington started finding prizes to show me.

His grunted "words" crack us up in their complex simplicity.

Ba - bottle

Ma - Mom

Ma- more

Sha - shoe

K - kitty

Da - Dad

Th - this, what's this, hey look at that

Do you do Motivated Moms or a similar idea?

Maybe you can just get things done without a list. 

What's your method for keeping caught up so you can enjoy the moments?