Good Clean Fun

If you had told me five years ago that stay-at-home moms need maids, I would have said, "Um, isn't that the whole point of being a stay-at-home mom? That all you do is clean your house all day while the kids just play quietly on their own?" 

But then I realized that not only did I never have a chance to clean the house, the house gets more used and therefore messier when you've got kids. When Leo was little I tried to clean during the hour and a half he was at Mother's Morning Out once a week. I would spend the entire time (which is really about an hour and ten minutes when you figure in driving time) cleaning. I remember another mom friend joking to me, "Do you want to go get coffee? Oh, wait. You have to go home and clean toilets." 

She had the right idea. Use your 70 minutes for some me-time and have a maid do the dirty work. 

So yes, SAHMs often need maids. I started having one come once a month. How my house sparkled that one day! After one week it still looked nice but not sparkly. After two weeks it looked okay. After three weeks it looked disgusting. But I couldn't clean at that point because she would be coming again in another week! So we lived in filth for one week of the month. My friend Claire and I called it "the third week" as in "you're welcome to come over but it's the third week." 

I had a monthly maid here but there were two problems: 1. She wasn't as good as my person in Georgia and 2. The house here is bigger so it cost more. And if I wasn't feeling the sparkle, I didn't want to fork over the...darn, isn't there a money synonym that sounds like sparkle? Like if "sprinkle" meant money that would go so well here. Let's pretend it does. And if I wasn't feeling the sparkle, I didn't want to fork over the sprinkle. Nice. 

So I went back to cleaning the house myself. One month I tried doing it all at once. I took Leo to preschool and Gus to drop-in day care and gave myself three hours to clean the whole house from top to bottom. I needed five! After that I switched to just doing chores daily, whenever I got a chance. I say all this to tell you about these two cleaning products I'm really excited about, as a DIY cleaner. 

I went to a cleaning party where another mom was selling these products called Norwex. I bought these "Enviro Cloths" that are kind of amazing. I don't understand all the science behind it but something about microfibers and antibacterial and you could clean your toilet and then your kitchen counter with the same cloth (not that you would ever do that but nice to know that you can)! 

The blue one on top is what I use to clean my kitchen counters and then I use the purple one to buff them. My streaky counters used to make me sad. Now they make me somewhat happy (probably need to be sealed). The streaks are much better with this cloth. It also makes my stainless steel stuff shine. Oh, and the purple cloth works on mirrors and windows too! And no cleaning sprays or solutions necessary. 

Another thing that was amazing was this whole demo she did on the cloth versus the Clorox Wipe. It involved raw chicken and all I gotta say is, don't think that Clorox Wipe is saving you from salmonella. 

I was also interested in Norwex's mop because my faux slate floors (actually tile) feel like sawdust all the time. I've tried everything from a regular mop to OxiClean to scrubbing them on my hands and knees with a brush. Whenever I walk on them my feet turn black. Ew. 

I researched the mop a little more and while it did sound like it's excellent, someone wrote about another one that was just as good but cheaper. That sounded right up my alley (and that's not just a 

cliché; I really do have an alley) so I bought it, the e-cloth mop. 

 I got the dry mop head and the wet mop head. No cleaning products, no chemicals, just water. I used it on my kitchen floors and for the first time they didn't feel like sawdust! And my feet didn't turn black! I'm in such a habit of putting on shoes before I walk in the kitchen but now I have to remind myself that  I am free to walk barefoot! The only problem is the kids love it too because it can shrink to their size. So they want to "help" me clean. And actually, Leo really has helped me. Gus, not so much.

Now that I've fired the maid and taken cleaning back under my control, my house sparkles every day. That is a lie. But my counter tops aren't as streaky and my kitchen floors don't feel like sawdust. And that's a start.

Me and my new mop. Photo credit: Leo