A Clean Act

I am desparately looking for a cleaner that will actually take the grime off pieces to the stove burners. I sift through my evironmentally-friendly overly-priced child-safe cleaners. They smell wonderful...look trendy...and do not put a dent in whatever is stuck to the burner plate I am now scrubbing away at with intensity. I have broken down and made a paste out of baking soda and water as I work away at it. My husband looks at me funny...but I am determined. My in-laws are visiting for the weekend, and the last couple of times they came to visit, I have walked in to find the stove torn apart and cleaned by my mother-in-law. I'm starting to worry that she thinks I don't know how to clean. I do remember...I was taught the basics long ago. I was even a touch on the obsessive side at one point. However, years of children (and husbands) going behind me and undoing all my efforts have forced me to all but give up on my cleaning efforts. I cringe as I look at the floor that desparately needs to be mopped. I wonder if she'll notice.

My husband, the helpful man that he is...wants to aid me in my efforts to make it look as though I do, in fact, clean. So he enlists the help of the older children. Jay is instructed to clean the toilet. I am not sure which is more humorous...the look on the child's face at the prospect of touching a toilet...or my husband's explanation on how to properly clean it.

"Honey...where are the cleaners?? Do we have antibacterial stuff? I need something antibacterial. Where's the Windex stuff?"

I hear him tell Jay to spray something "antibacterial" in the toilet and let it sit. Jay begins to complain.

"Somebody didn't flush!! It must have been Marissa....but Daaa-aad....she used a ton of toilet paper! The crap in there is like this big!" He is indicating the size of excrement with his hands.

"So? Flush it, then!!"

Jay mumbles something about him not even being the one to make the mess and how unfair life is.

I am still scrubbing in vain. I finally give up, and figure, oh well...my mother-in-law will do it properly when she gets here. Along with cleaning the counters and possibly even throwing in a load of laundry. I sigh. If she found it clean here, she'd probably wonder what was wrong, anyway.

Suddenly, I hear my toddler crying. My husband is irritated because she tried to dump her own pee from her little potty to the big toilet. I hear the toilet flush, and my toddler cry out in pain. The next thing I know, I have a naked toddler tugging on my shirt, babbling incoherently about Daddy flushing her pee.

I hear Jay state in disgust that Marissa could make it into Ripley's Believe It or Not because she somehow managed to get poop on the lid of the toilet.

Only in this house would you simutaneously have one child upset about having to flush another person's mess, one child upset about not being allowed to flush a toilet, and a third child who never seems to flush at all.

I try to calm my middle child and explain that she is allowed to flush, but either her father or I have to do the dumping. It's too late...the tears are streaming down, and she wails uncontrollably, unable to hear my explanation. I guide her out to get a new Pull-Up on.

She finally calms down, and Bruce tells her she can go flush the toilet if she wants...he had just thrown some tissue in it.

"Okay!" She runs to the bathroom....only to come out, upset again.

"I can't! The toilet is dirty!!!"

Oh brother.

Bruce vacuums, and my coffee is now cold. The kitchen, however, is clean...for the most part. I ask Bruce when his parents were stopping by, because I thought I heard him on the phone with them.

He smiles.

"They're not. They went to my brother's house today."

I look at the clean living room...the twins, wearing actual outfits instead of their stained sleepers, and the shiny stove. That figures. The next time they visit there will be dried spaghetti sauce on the stove, toys littering the living room, and dirty dishes filling the sink. I know this because this is always what seems to happen. I just hope that maybe...maybe when my mother-in-law's kids were growing up, the stove might have been dirty...and there might have been dirty socks under the couch. Perhaps oatmeal streaked the table now and then...and she tripped over legos. And hopefully her mother-in-law came to visit...and gave her a big hug because she, too, understood....and knew that deep down, she wasn't really a slob...just a tired mom.

Well, I can dream, right?