Clean Up In Aisle 1

In the last 2 months I've mopped up more pee off the floor (both carpet and tile) than I care to count or even acknowledge. Let's just put it this way - potty training 3 is rough on carpet! I feel like my house must perpetually smell like urine, which is why I'm currently arranging to have a cleaning company come deep clean our carpets. Sorry, I'm getting off track here!

Early last week we had a horrendous 45 minutes here... I'll spare you some of the details because quite honestly they may cause you to lose your mid-morning snack (or lunch or dinner depending on when you read my blog). Basically though it all started with Tyler making the biggest mess on the carpet that I've seen yet and then that mess getting spread by Jackson. After I finished cleaning Tyler up I went into their bedroom and shut the door in hopes of cleaning the carpet before "stuff" set in.

While I was in the bedroom Chase had to pee, except he didn't bang on the door or even yell to me that he had to go potty... no. He peed on the floor (carpet again) right in front of the door. I whisked him to the other bathroom (bathroom #1 was still out of commission following Tyler's mess) to clean him up.

When Chase and I rounded the corner into the living room we found this...

 

  

I like to think Jackson noticed it had been a particularly trying 45 minutes for me so decided to take initiative and clean up his own mess. It should be noted they have NEVER helped mop pee off the floor - they've only watched me do it a hundred times. I was shocked when I came out and found him like this! He even had gone into their diaper bag, pulled out the container of wipes and pulled one out to mop the floor with. Needless to say, this was the silver lining (and something to make me laugh) on this very dark, very big cloud.

Starting Them Early

For those that haven't heard me say it before, my husband is the best. Ever since we got married he's been the official cleaner of our home. It's not that I don't know how to clean or even that I refuse to clean. It's that he refuses to let me clean! In the pre-baby years I would come home from work on Friday evening to a completely clean apartment - everything from the dusting to the toilets.

Since having the boys Nick has to do "segment cleaning". That's what he calls it anyway. Basically he cleans one bathroom one night, and the other one a different night and so on. Every night when we do our daily pick-up of the house he insists on taking the harder of the two jobs: the kitchen! Like I said, he's the best.

Considering how blessed I have been by the helpful nature of my husband I decided early on that I want to raise my sons to be helpful too, so that one day their wives can be as lucky as I am. When we set up the boys' playroom I told Nick I thought we should start having the boys help us clean it up every night. We started it like a game, where we'd hand the boys a toy and tell them to put it in a certain basket. When they accomplished that we would clap and cheer so wildly you would think they'd just driven in the winning run of the World Series. In general now we can just ask them to put toys in baskets and books on the shelf and they will. Every once in a while though we need to hand them something to get them going. It's a beautiful arrangement.

The other night Nick decided it was time to teach the boys the fine art of sucking up food off the floor. In the picture above you will see Chase (at least I think it's Chase... I'm not really sure) learning how to use the dust buster! The other boys got to try it out too and loved it of course. Our goal is to have them trained to clean the toilets (and not play in them) by the time they're 2.

Don't forget to check out the new posts on Mom Revolution! I'd love to see some of my blogging friends doing Cans for Comments with me next week!