feeling silly...but clean!

At our house, when the babies are infants and require nighttime feedings, I jump out of the bed when I hear them cry. FLY out of the bed. I have spent many hundreds of hours waking from a deep sleep and caring for our young.

However, it seems that as soon as they are weaned and sleeping through the night, I no longer hear their pitiful cries. (I probably should have expected this because before we even had children it would take a literal tornado to wake me in the middle of the night.) Matthew is super-parent at this point. He hears the cries and occasional screams.

I sleep through.

At times Matthew has tried to make me feel guilty about my super deep sleeping.

It hasn't worked.

I like to point out that the best thing about me sleeping so deep is that I have a fabulous trait to pass on to our children. (I think we all want kids who are deep sleepers-don't we.)

It's a gift I have to give.

Last night though, Elyn decided to wake up EVERY SINGLE HOUR. Very unusual! She is typically a 12-hour girl.

(See, I've already passed on one of my gifts.)

Well, "Mr. Wake Up at the Drop of a Hat" got up a few times and then decided he'd had enough and started shoving me awake to assist in all the fun.

It wasn't all that fun and I wish he had just let me sleep.

Since Elyn woke up this morning with a disgusting nose and a very unpleasant personality I thought a little visit to the ole doc might not be such a bad idea. I was ready to nip this already-diagnosed-by-doctor-mom ear infection in the bud.

Guess what?

Both ears.

Crystal clear. No infection. Zero.

Sigh. I feel like a dummy. Bye-bye co-pay.

The good news is that Matthew won't wake me up tonight when she cries. Because she is FINE.

So, while I am incapable of using my x-ray vision to determine if my little girl needs a stronger medicine than tylenol, I AM capable of figuring out HOW IN THE WIDE WORLD I am going to keep this casa clean.

I yearn to have a clean house.

I desire to have a clean and orderly house.

I do a decent job of keeping most things orderly and clean too. (Please do not EVER go in my closet.)

But I have to WORK at it. And frankly, this is not the job I want.

(I look forward to the day that I resume working full-time ONLY because that means I will get to hire someone to clean my house. I will give up drinking Diet Coke to pay for the housekeeper if that's what it takes-that's how serious I am. But it will not happen until all children are tucked away in elementary school.)

When I clean, I usually have a marathon day and knock it all out at once.

This is obviously not the most efficient way to get things done. Nora and Elyn don't like me ignoring them and yelling, "Stay away from the cleaners! Do you want me to have to call poison control? NOOOOO, don't put your hands near your mouth!"

Not to mention that I am wiped out for the rest of the day and barely have the energy to tell everyone to stop dropping crumbs all over my freshly washed floors.

So you can imagine how delighted I was to come across FlyLady. She has cleaning broken down into zones and I LOVE that!

She also has a lot of beginner steps, which are things I feel like I am already doing. (And you know who you are if you are a beginner cleaner...nothing to be ashamed of...check her out-your floors and bathtubs will thank you.)

But, her zone cleaning...changing my life!

I don't feel so overwhelmed by all of the deep cleaning and am breaking everything down daily instead of a big day once a week. Also, all the TOYS and daily clutter are not weighing me down as much.

So the morals of this post: don't take your kid to the doctor just because you miss a nights sleep (unless she/he is ACTUALLY sick) and check out my new friend, FlyLady.