And Then I Was a Mom

A few weeks ago, Aura was playing with Play Doh at her little Ikea table when I announced it was time to tidy up and get ready for dinner. As she began to mash the clay back into its cans, I heard her muttering to herself.

“Ugh!” she hissed from under her table, where she had gone to retrieve some rogue clumps of blue and then presumably stopped to survey other debris in the general vicinity. “I can’t find ANYTHING clean in here.”

If her pronouncement hadn’t rung so sincere, echoing with indignation as it did off the doubtlessly filth-streaked walls, I would have thought the entire scenario had been engineered by Adam. He’s been after me for months to hire some sort of cleaning service. For the record, his cause has absolutely nothing to do with the actual cleanliness of the house and everything to do with attempts to avoid cleaning it himself. Last week I asked him to pitch in with laundry and it went like this.

Me: Hey, Adam? I need to give Aura a bath and meet a work deadline and burn Smoky Jo, Patron Cat of Evil, at the stake.  Think you could start up that load of sweaters waiting in the washer?

Adam: Um!

Me: You know, the washer. It’s upstairs?

Adam: Huh!

Me: You go up the stairs, hook a right, then turn into the bathroom. It’s right next to the dryer.

Adam: That’s the white one, right?

Me: The washer and dryer are both white.  But the washer is the one that washes. With water and soap. The clothes, they go around and around?

Adam: Aha!

He did go upstairs and he did find the washer. It appears that he shrunk my utmost favorite sweater in all the world, and it appears that I then put all of our savings accounts in my name only, BUT: He tried. And if I’m being fair, which I really, really hate to be, he is also trying when he suggests I hire someone to help clean.

Our house is a decent size and the dirt seems to double when I’m in the midst of a work project and still taking care of Aura full time. (Damn self-cloning dirt.) It doesn’t help that Aura leaves a path of unholy destruction in her wake, the hallways so thick with pointy Lite Brite pegs and jagged-edged fairy wands and Littlest Pet Shop foot-spearing figurines that it’s a wonder there’s not at least one nine-toed person living in this house.

I'm telling you: That wand is like every foot's worst nightmare.

Yet…eh. I don’t know.  Why is it always a  ”cleaning lady“? If tomorrow I flipped open the Yellow Pages and my eye caught on a listing for The Cleaning Men, I might have a change of heart. And if the listing intimated that The Cleaning Men preferred to scrub and mop shirtless, so confined were their bodybuilder muscles in the required Cleaning Men uniform, hell, I’d sign a five-year contract.

Deep down in my probably mildew-laden heart, I think my resistance to the cleaner idea boils down to personal failure. Why can’t I manage to work some and take care of Aura and cook well-balanced meals AND keep the banisters polished? Is it really worth spending a chunk of our hard-earned income simply because I am humanly incapable of getting those hard-water stains off the shower walls? If some complete stranger has to come into my house in order for the chair rails to regain some of their original woody glow, what does that say about ME?

I do know the answer to that last question. Really, I do. Hiring someone to help out once every two weeks says pretty much nothing–a lot like this blog post, in fact. But it will take a while for me to admit that to anyone in person. I may be a realist online, but I am doggedly delusional face to face.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for roving bands of Chippendales-dancers-turned-housekeepers. For them I will readily admit defeat.

It doesn't count as child labor if it's your own kid.