Homemaking: Taming the House

Amish house

When Mama ain't happy, no one's happy!

Does that ring true in your house? Do you walk from one room to another looking at your floor, noticing Lincoln Log pieces, tiny pony beads, waded-up paper, dirty socks, the pajamas your son never put in the hamper? The stray puzzle pieces that never made it into the box?

Do you hang up clean shirts in your son's bedroom, only to notice the clean jeans and shirts he rejected and threw on the floor?

Here's a peek into my heart. "For heaven's sake! I spend the bulk of a day doing laundry and he has the audacity to throw down what I've painstakingly fluffed and hung? What kind of blatant disrespect is that? What's the matter with that kid? What's wrong with all these kids and why in heaven's name must they create a disaster in their wake every. single. day.? How many times must they see me erupt before they get it?"

When I spout a verbal tirade about their disrespect of my time and our environment, what usually follows is some problem solving on my part. (They just get quiet for awhile, wondering when it will blow over).

What can I do better? What will it take to create a smooth-running home? How can we clean up faster and start school earlier? Should we start leaving the mess until after school?

If you homeschool you're likely to have a few more meltdowns than your friend next door, who cleans her house while her kids are away at school all day. She probably pays bills, organizes, and grocery shops while they're gone too (not that there's anything wrong with that).

If you find yourself melting down like me, let's spend some time together working through our issues over the next few weeks. I'll share what's worked for me and you can share too.

Helpful Things I've Implemented:

Catch Up Day:  I recommend you have one school day a week that doesn't require you to teach or monitor. My boys, ages 9 and 10, read their historical novels, their science trade books, their non-fiction social studies selections, and do their math, AWANA, and devotional times without my help. I'm needed for their spelling, writing, and for discussions of readings.

My 5-year-old K student is in a very dependent mode, needing me for penmanship, reading and writing, and math. Daddy does science with her on the weekends and he discusses the boys' science reading with them and conducts experiments on weekends too.

In order to have one day a week to catch up on the house, I give my K student one day off, except for a little penmanship practice and her AWANA verses. On this same day, my boys don't do spelling, writing, or have discussions of readings. My day is mostly free then, to catch up.

However you need to arrange it, give yourself one day to concentrate on the house. Enlist your older children to dust, vacuum and sweep, so you can tackle the unfolded laundry and other clutter. 10-year-old Peter does very well with these chores, but 9-year-old Paul is still learning. Most of the time Paul helps me by reading to the girls and leading them in art projects, so I can stay focused on decluttering.

Bag and Label Game Pieces/Parts:
Older kids play with games and cards more than toys. That means hundreds of game pieces and cards all over the house, potentially. After a number of meltdowns over this (my meltdowns not theirs), I took all the board games and bagged their parts into plastic ziplock bags, and labeled the bags with a Sharpie marker. We have 2 small toy bins that hold these ziplocked game bags, and on the outside of the bins I listed all the games represented in the bags. The actual manufacture game boxes only contain the game boards themselves--not the tiny marker pieces, monopoly cards, money, dice, etc. This way if the children put the boxes away sloppily or if the preschooler pulls out the game boxes, little damage can be done. No more looking for lost pieces, no more stress over the preschooler reeking havoc, no more heated lectures about lazy clean-up jobs.

Pitch Some Toys:  Kids don't mean to drive us insane with their trail of junk. The problem is often our fault; we provide too many toys and games and choices. They're more overwhelmed than lazy.

Early on I made a lot of mistakes and our playroom overflowed with toys. Most toys received little attention from the kids, except that the babies and toddlers threw them all over, creating havoc hourly. Many were educational toys and I was under the false impression that you could never have too many of those. Less is always more when it comes to toys. Concentrate on well-made classics and forget the trendy.

In the last couple years I've pitched toys every few months, and recently I've grown more radically minimalist. If they haven't played with something in two months, I pitch it, with the exception of board games. I don't ask my children's advice when I do this. They believe they'll eventually play with everything, so it's futile to involve them. I delay giving the bags to Goodwill for a week or so, to see if there's any adverse reaction. Most of the time they don't notice anything missing.

Here's a listing of what's survived my pitching (4 kids in this house, ages 3 to 10):

• Geo Trax train set (neighbor kids really enjoy this too)
• Legos
• Wooden building blocks
• Lincoln Logs
• various board games/card games/advanced cardboard puzzles
• hot wheel cars and 2 simple tracks
• 1 plastic bowling set that is good for Beth's therapy (deep-knee bending to set up pins) 
• 1 used heavy duty semi-truck that is good for Beth's arthritis therapy (she rides on it and propels with her quadriceps)
• 15 favorite stuffed animals
Dolly/Homemaking Stuff

• 4 dolls
• 8 changes of doll clothes
• 1 dolly cradle and 1 dolly bed (good thing to buy used, since they can be expensive)
• Play kitchen and dishes and a few plastic food items (buy a used play kitchen--new ones are so expensive!)
• Play cash register (this will be pitched next time)
• 1 small doll stroller and 1 used shopping cart
  
  Things I've regretted buying over the years:

• Fisher Price Little People toys: the people, animals, and small vehicles are useful, but the rest is a waste of money and it all takes up too much room
• Commercial toy sets like Dora and Diego and Elmo (usually low quality)
• pony beads and jewels (probably best for older girls)
• play dish sets with too many parts
• play food sets containing box foods (once the little cardboard boxes get bent they're worthless!)
• play money 
• remote control cars (battery nightmare)
• cheap yard toy sets (badminton, golf, etc--yard toys need to be high quality, durable)

Educational Items I've Kept: (These items are on a shelf in the dining room, where we do most of our school. The books are in the playroom mostly in shelves, except that recently Husband put up rain gutters for me to display easy-reader paperbacks and favorite storybooks.)

• About 800-900 children's books (mostly Scholastic paperbacks from book clubs, and board books--many are not in the best of shape by now; I began collecting books in 1992)
• 26 alphabet Little People animals
• Sorting toys for teaching patterns in preschool and K math
• Magnet alphabet letters/white board, Leap Frog Fridge Phonics
• Playdoh toys (stored in dining room because the Playdoh is hard on carpets)
• 4 wood puzzles for Beth, 4 large cardboard flour puzzles (ages preschool - 8)
• Wooden clock puzzle with numbered blocks
• 3 kinds of paint, brushes
• 5 coloring books and crayons

The bedrooms contain no toys at all (our family room is our playroom). When the playroom gets too messy and the children run out of room, their toys end up migrating to the dining room and living room, and that's when my nerves suffer most. My most recent pitch of toys should help that situation. 

Five Minute Clean-ups: When you notice clutter taking over, stop what you're doing and call for a 5-minute clean up. Turn on your favorite music and have everyone pick up and put away 8 things. I have two children who stuff things in corners, so after a clean up I always check the corners and under the couches. If you forget these 5-minutes clean ups, things will get far worse by 5:00 PM and you'll be cranky when your husband gets home. It doesn't matter how much we love mothering, if our husbands see us grumbling every evening, they won't know how blessed we feel. Sometimes I have to convince my husband that I love being at home all day. And that makes me sad. :(  Because I really do love this job!

Let Go of Perfection: When the house looks awful and it isn't your main cleaning day, give yourself permission to let it go. Concentrate on school. Do the laundry and dishes and let the rest go. If you start to feel cranky about clutter and dirt, cuddle with the kids on the couch and read to them. I find that my mood over the house always dissipates quickly when I do this. Having them next to me reminds me of how much I cherish them...messes and all.

Try inviting company on the day after you've cleaned, when hopefully everything still looks fairly good. Or invite company anytime if you aren't the nervous type. Most people just need a place to sit and don't care about kid grime and clutter. And the fastidious people who judge? They aren't your real friends.

What has worked for you, friends?