Cleanliness is next to a sleeping child...

I love my children.  I really and truly do.  But I've noticed something:  the moment I'm done with my cleaning, it's no longer clean.  They've followed me along, and in my wake of clean floors and decluttered surfaces they have done tricks on their boogie boards and created a new expanse of mess to clean up. 

For those of you who face this problem everyday, I haven't solved the problem.  Sorry.  But I have found one way to work around it!  I have learned to time my cleaning so that it is finished right before naptime!  That way I can at least enjoy my clean, clutter free home for a few hours before the whirlwinds known as Attie, Annika, Aelin, and Andrew come tumbling through and sending it back into chaos.  And for quite some time now, this system has worked well.  They don't have much time between their nap and dinner to do too much damage, and after dinner is prime time for them to follow Daddy around, so they ignore everything in the house at that point.  Then it's bathtime and bedtime, so I can sail into the night time hours in relative order.  Don't get me wrong, there are still toys to pick up  and books to return to their shelves, but it's not nearly the natural disaster it could be.  And I can get through my list of daily maintenance tasks without too much hassle. 

So, if you can get the kids to burn off a lot of energy in the morning, give them some quiet activities for an hour or so before lunch to settle them down while you clean, then after lunch they can go down for a nap and you can revel in a clean house!  And if you want to indulge in a nap yourself, go right ahead, but for those of you with very young children I have a better suggestion:  start dinner now.  Put something in the crock pot, or at least prep dinner and put it in the frig to pop in the oven later.  It's so much easier to do in a clean kitchen that doesn't have kids running around underfoot!  And that way, when the kids get up from their naps and the witching hour before dinner begins, you can just play with them rather than try to shush them and send them away while you begin the dreaded "what to make for dinner dance" while standing in front of an open refrigerator.   

See?  Cleanliness really is next to a sleeping child!