31 Days {Day 24}: Handling Housework

The saying goes, " So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!  I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep," and it is oh so true.  But...yes, there is a but....BUT there is still housework to be done.  The children come first, but the toilet still needs a scrubbing.  Snuggling with my toddler is important, but I do need to sweep the crumbs from the kitchen floor.  Reading stories and tickling and pushing them on the backyard swing is priceless, but no one wants to sleep on stale sheets.  Housework is another of those things that must be dealt with (or at least thought about) on a daily basis.  I don't know about you, but keeping up with even the most basic cleaning has at times been a major stresser. 

When my children were younger, I began teaching them to help around the house.  We began with small tasks.  Keeping them by my side or close-by as we worked guaranteed that no one was getting into mischief in another room of the house.  Because they worked with or near me, it was best to spread the cleaning and housework chores over the whole week instead of attempting to clean the whole house in one shot.  We changed sheets every other Monday, dusted the downstairs on Tuesday, cleaned the bathroom on Thursday, and so on.  Sometimes...who am I kidding...many times I wished that I could do my work alone, knowing it would be so much easier to wait until everyone was sleeping or otherwise occupied.  One morning when Gavin was about 15 or 16 months old, I found  him shut in the bathroom where he was swishing the toilet brush into the toilet bowl. 

But of course, babies don't keep, and as my babies grew, they became a genuine help around the house.  We still tend to spread the housework throughout the week, but on weeks when company is coming (which has been three weeks in  a row this month), we will spend a larger space of time washing, scrubbing, dusting ceiling fans, vacuuming crevices, and beating rugs to get the whole house clean and shiny all at once.   I could not have even entertained the thought of doing such a thing without the help of another adult a couple of years ago, but we are now in a new season, and even though our current home is larger than our townhouse was and has an extra bathroom, it is infinitely easier to clean with everything on one floor.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might." 

Whether you have the time and energy to keep your house clean from top to bottom or whether you can only commit to the bare necessities, do it all as unto Him!

{Disclaimer: Though this post was written to give you ideas and to illustrate how our family handles the household chores, remember that you are walking your own path!}