Good Moms Quote...

This little quote, while nice and cute, is one of my biggest pet peeves. I am the first to admit that I am OCD about keeping my house clean. Granted, when I say clean I mean the toys are picked up, the floors are vacuumed at least every other day, and dishes are done. 

My oldest, Joshua, has an OCD streak to him as well. He will grab a small dustpan and broom I have and clean up messes when he sees them, he picks up toys and puts them away, and his shoes are always put in either the laundry room or in the bin under his bed. 

I spend 3 hours a week and it's usually on a Friday and during Matthew's nap, to clean my house...bathrooms, kitchen, living, bedrooms...everything gets dusted, vacuumed, mopped, picked up, and laundry done. We never really had a messy house growing up. My mom was a housekeeper for other people and us kids...all four of us...had our chores to do every day when we got home from school. They rotated every day so we did something different, but our house was kept clean because of this. Were we unhappy or neglected?..By no means. We had a happy childhood. We could play easy and have friends over without trying to find our toys or the floor for that matter. 

The other night I had missed some dinner meat that had fallen on the floor and it was found my my oldest who then thought that his little brother needed to eat and shoved it into his mouth. I had been walking towards my room (where the boys where), when my youngest came walking back towards me, his mouth hanging open, and his lips blue. I had never freaked out so badly in my entire life. My little boy wasn't breathing. The force of picking him up off the floor and shouting at him to breathe seemed to work because he swallowed the meat and started crying. I just held him in my arms and cried. While my oldest did get in trouble for shoving the food into brothers mouth, you could tell he was scared and very sorry. He sent himself to his room for a good ten minutes then came back out with a tear streaked face and kissed his brother, telling him he was sorry and he wouldn't do it ever again.

What lesson does this tell you? Clean your house. Children are not adults and do not have the "common sense" to not do something. I will be pulling out my little dirt devil vacuum after every single meal from this point on and vacuuming the floor around the table to make sure it is all cleaned up. I want my boys to grow up and be happy...in order for this to happen they need to have a clean home. I'm not talking eat off the floor clean, just clean...toys picked up and no food on the floor to choke on.

I have always been teased and ridiculed about how clean my house is...but now I know that I have a reason to be the way I am...my children are small and still learning the ins and outs of life and in order for them to learn it correctly they will be doing it in a clean house. Does this make me a bad mom? A mom that doesn't spend time with my kids? No, I am a good mom and I spend a great deal of time with my children...like I said I spend 3 hours a week cleaning my house. When you think about the fact that we have 168 hours in a week...3 hours is nothing in the grand scheme of things.