Mamas that are "Messies" Support Thread

[mamajane]

Originally Posted by 2_sweet_boys

I have the opposite of this problem and need help with that. Sounds silly but the more kids I have the more I have a need for a clean, perfect house. I HAVE to let go. I just cant seem too, it's getting worse. Maybe it's the only order I have in a chaotic home with a 2 and a half yr old, 3 month old, and two dogs. I have real trouble with my priorities these days, the cleaning has to come first or I can't even think straight. Anybody with me? Help??

You might want to start a thread for this, because most of the ladies subbed to this thread are struggling housekeepers and you'd be more likely to have ladies who can relate with a separate thread.

[ruhama]

Originally Posted by 2_sweet_boys

I have the opposite of this problem and need help with that. Sounds silly but the more kids I have the more I have a need for a clean, perfect house. I HAVE to let go. I just cant seem too, it's getting worse. Maybe it's the only order I have in a chaotic home with a 2 and a half yr old, 3 month old, and two dogs. I have real trouble with my priorities these days, the cleaning has to come first or I can't even think straight. Anybody with me? Help??

For actions, including cleaning, that become things you "have" to do, it's usually a method of anxiety reduction. I can understand the mindset - cleaning was always what happened whenever I took my ADHD medication and it was always what I did to procrastinate in college. I feel like I suddenly can't concentrate and start cleaning so I can have minimal distractions for my task. I'd agree that you should start a new thread. You'd surely get more help there.

[Kiara.I]

Originally Posted by 2_sweet_boys

Anybody with me? Help??

Not on this thread! (Laughing at us, not you...)

However, about how to help it--have you considered/looked at Flylady? It's for messies--BUT, she sometimes gets testimonials from people who *have to* have things clean, and have been able, by having a system and following it, to *let go* of the necessity for total cleanliness at every moment and been able to relax a bit about it.

[SewingGreenMama]

I'm an awful 'messy'!
I am such an awful procrastinator.
It truly is ridiculous, and for some reason I'm worse when my husband is home which is all the time now that he has graduated and his looking for a job. It feels like the house hasn't even been in acceptable condition in a month!
I was nearly in tears today out of frustration, I just got a dishwasher full of dishes done and am about to run out for an errand. I just don't know where to start. Part of it is hubby has taken days to get rid of our old waterbed frame little bit here and a little bit there. I need to find a dresser for him. Hmmmm.

[mamajane]

Originally Posted by SewingGreenMama

I'm an awful 'messy'!
I am such an awful procrastinator.
It truly is ridiculous, and for some reason I'm worse when my husband is home which is all the time now that he has graduated and his looking for a job. It feels like the house hasn't even been in acceptable condition in a month!
I was nearly in tears today out of frustration, I just got a dishwasher full of dishes done and am about to run out for an errand. I just don't know where to start. Part of it is hubby has taken days to get rid of our old waterbed frame little bit here and a little bit there. I need to find a dresser for him. Hmmmm.

Having lack of dresser space can be hard. I also have a hard time getting anything done when my dh is home. A month isn't bad! My house hasn't been in "acceptable" condition in.....well, way too long!

[Daria_Aleksandrovna]

an ex-big-bad-messie here (do you really want testimony about pans that I threw away rather than deal with because they got so mouldy? )...and I cried in familiarity at all these posts on this thread))

If I had baby and were on GCM 5 years ago, I'd have at those on [Day of week to do lists] threads who had 3 kids under 3 or something ridiculous...

[MaryPoppinsIAin't]

I'm one of Flylady's dreaded perfectionists. I heard "If you don't have time to do it right, then you don't have time to do it at all" pretty much daily as a kid. So I constantly feel overwhelmed and like there's no point in starting because I don't have time to finish. My mom's house was always SPOTLESS, and she also did the vast majority of the cleaning while my brother and I were either sleeping, at school, or otherwise not there to see her do it, so I grew up with very little concept of how much work it was to keep that huge house clean.

Now that I have a kid and have had it forcibly brought home that no, there aren't magical elves that appear at night and clean the house, I've figured out how she did it. One, she was compulsively organized. I mean the woman had a card-file system that was color-coded for daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, biannual, and once a year tasks. I kid you not, I found it after she died, and thought "OH, so that's how she did it!". But the flip side of that is that the only way she had time to DO all of that was by taking time away from her kids and her sleep. She loved us... but I always had the impression that we were bothering her, and the extremely rare time that we were all awake and home and she wasn't cleaning or cooking and had managed to pick up a book... well, let's say I only interrupted her once or twice before learning to not do that. She was always tired, and I think it was only her sweet "nature" that kept her from screaming at us constantly. (Yes, I used the word "sweet" on purpose, my grandmother would very much have approved of the associated parenting methods.)

I basically refused to ever be like that. I don't want to be so tired that I look at my children and say "Leave me alone!!!" when "Hey, let's walk down to the park" (where I can read my book while they exhaust themselves!) would do just as well. And I decided years ago that it really didn't matter if the house never looks like a magazine, a little clutter makes things look lived in, right?

The issue is that it never stops at "a little clutter". Things pile up and collect and drift until one day (yesterday, for example), I look at our bedroom, shriek "I CAN'T STAND IT ANYMORE" and cancel any plans I had for the day, and clean. And I'm a horrible nag when I'm in that mode, my innate sense of justice RAGES at the sight of my husband sitting on the couch mindlessly watch television while I clean up the mess he helped to create. So there's nagging and guilting and shaming and it generally ends up with sparkling clean rooms and very irritated John & Laura.

THe only good thing about our current house (besides the fenced yard) is the floors. We have hardwood throughout the house, and I will NEVER go back to carpets. Sweeping is SOOO much faster than a vacuum!!!

[Kiara.I]

Sounds like your mom might have been a messy too! Or at least, it sounds like she was following the Sidetracked Home Executives plans for cleaning, with the card file--and they were the precursors to FlyLady.

[mamajane]

I wanted to share my latest discovery, esp for mamas who usually end up cleaning the bathroom with toilet paper because the only time they remember to clean it is when they're in there.. My bathroom was getting really neglected (well, it's still not sparkly...) because my spray bottle for cleaner had disappeared (just into another room, I think). I happened to have an empty dish soap bottle, and I put two and two together, and put cleaner in it, and now I have a cool squirt bottle for cleaning the bathroom! And it won't get clogged and stop working like a spray bottle does! I feel like a genius. It feels very professional, like one of those fancy bottles of toxic cleaner made just for spraying under the toilet seat rim, or one of those fancy bottles of "spray and shine" or something, which I've only seem on TV.

Hope that helps someone!

[ruhama]

So can I share something that is working pretty well for us? We've only got the one toddler, but he's the first grandkid on BOTH sides so we're overflowing with toys. I spent one evening a month back sorting and organizing the toys. After throwing out unloved and broken ones (he was sleeping), I got out a box of gallon bags & put all the toys by type into those. Now all his toy cars are in one bag, his duplo have their own two bags, megablocks in their own box, all toy food together, all wooden blocks together, etc. Pieces that go to larger sets are all bagged together in gallon or quart bags and nearly everything is in a toy box in our second room/office. There's one tub of toys for the living room with stuff he likes to play with daily. This makes enforcing one toy group out at a time much easier for us! I've woken up several times to a mostly clean living room floor!!! (and bedroom floor now that we all have our own hampers).

It's a big step forward for us! Hoping we can keep it up!

[Annainprogress]

I think some of you might be aware from my comments on other threads that I have a periodic babysitter who usually does some cleaning for me when she comes. Well this week, I managed to get almost all the living room floor clear, and almost all the dishes washed before babysitting night! (ended up being her husband who came this week not her so probably just as well )

[2ddmom]

I'm with you guys! I LOVE to have a clean and organized home... but it seems like more often than not, things are out of control and messy. I could clean all day, and it seems like within 10 minutes, everything looks like I never touched it. When things get cluttered, I sort of shut down too, and things just get worse.

I want to break that cycle.

Anyone know how?

[mamajane]

Originally Posted by GamGam007

I'm with you guys! I LOVE to have a clean and organized home... but it seems like more often than not, things are out of control and messy. I could clean all day, and it seems like within 10 minutes, everything looks like I never touched it. When things get cluttered, I sort of shut down too, and things just get worse.

I want to break that cycle.

Anyone know how?

Um, just skip the cleaning part and surrender to the mess?

[RealLifeMama]

Originally Posted by GamGam007

I want to break that cycle.

Anyone know how?

I started this thread many years ago, and I really do not consider myself a "messie" anymore, although I am far from a cleanie. My house is still not clean all the time, but I do a lot of housework and it is manageable. Most days. Granted, my youngest child is now almost two, and I have some older children that can help, so it is not just me doing all the work.

I get overwhelmed by clutter and messes and shut down as well.
I think what has broken the cycle for us is babysteps. Forming new thought processes and habits. It has taken a long time, but giving up the "I want it all clean *now* " is crucial anyhow.
Pick one area to focus on, and make a routine for that area. Make it a habit. Then, once that is a habit, work on something else.
Start with what area triggers your home anxiety the most, and focus on changing that first.
Declutter as much as possible. Do small amounts every day. What you do daily means more than what you do in spurts.
For me, the kitchen is my biggest source of anxiety. If my kitchen is taken care of, I can be at peace with the rest of the house.
I make sure the dishes are done every night (or most nights.) I have a dishwasher, and I use it once or twice a day. I try to keep the counters clear and the floor swept. And, oh yeah...I actually have to do chores every day. Multiple times a day. When my family was smaller, I could skip them and was in the mindset of skipping them. They are no longer optional. The floor in the kitchen must be swept at least once a day, if not more than one a day. It is like brushing my teeth now. I no longer have the luxury of allowing something to pile up. I remember making chore lists and home blessing challenges and thinking certain chores were maybe weekly and "Do I really need to mop my floor again? I just did that!" Making them normal things to do, not huge deals, helps the most.

I actually have a routines now that at least keep things moving. They are never *done*, but they do move along.

My house is not how I want, and if you saw my bedroom or certain areas of my home, you would , but I no longer have the paralyzing housecleaning anxiety I used to.