Maid, please! — slackermama . com

Zoot posted a few things over at her blog that have made me think about the housekeeping (or lack thereof, more accurately) around here these days. Oh heck, who am I kidding? How about every day for the last 8 years?

I’m a shitty housekeeper. This is a fact that I don’t even try to hide anymore. Part of it is laziness. Part of it is a sincere hatred for cleaning. But mostly laziness. My urge to keep my seat or do something entertaining far outweighs my urge to vacuum or do the dishes. I definitely hate to see things dirty, but I don’t hate it that badly. I’ve got priorities.

Dirty Dishes This doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty ALL THE TIME, though. Not the least of which is that it is sort of my job. I am a stay at home mother and certain activities come with the territory. Like cleaning. And cooking. Which, frankly, I do neither. I try to do the dishes, but since Liam’s birth, that little job has been overlooked on more than on occasion. Like now. YIKES. See, I see that and I go, “Wow, I really need to do dishes. As soon as I pump/feed Liam/pick Harry up from school, I’ll get right on those.” And of course, once I’ve done all those things (and more!), the last thing I want to do is dishes and I sit down on my recliner in exhaustion and zone out for an hour.

Pitiful.

Cooking is no better, for sure. I can cook. Let’s get that straight. I have ability. But, I don’t like to cook. And for many of the exact same reasons Zoot gave in her post. I just don’t care enough to enjoy the many nuances. I have a set of four or five favorite dishes that, if I were the one doing the cooking around here, would be the only things we ever ate for dinner. That and Domino’s pizza. I’m also a little too regimented for cooking. It requires a certain level of creativity that I just don’t possess. I have to use a recipe because I could never just “wing it”. And I have to measure everything because I cannot simply “eyeball it”. And when I think Kile will be home at 6:00 and we want to eat at 6:15, I’ll start dinner at the appropriate time and inevitably, that’s the night that Kile gets home at 6:30 or later. So then everything is burnt or cold or ruined in some other fashion. Ugh. I just don’t need that headache.

Luckily, when it comes to cooking, Kile does like to cook. And he’s good at it. He is creative and inventive and can “wing it” and “eyeball it”. He likes to try out new recipes. And thankfully, most of the time, he views fixing dinner as a good way to wind down from the day at work. Else I’m liable to feel bad that I make him, who has been at work all day, come home and cook (but not bad enough to cook dinner myself, natch). Now, there are occasions that he asks me fix dinner. And I will. That or I’ll order Domino’s or take us out to Jack in the Box or something.

A lot of this is why I’m trying really hard not to get resentful when Kile gets home from work and doesn’t take the baby off my hands for a little bit. Because while a break would be nice, since I don’t do any housework to speak of, taking care of Liam and Harry is my primary responsibility. So if I need to get up in the middle of the night, I’ve been doing so without delay (though now that Liam is only waking once in the night, we’ve been switching off nights, so that’s nice) so that I won’t wake up Kile more than I need to. And if Kile wants to play Halo after dinner while I change my umpteenth diaper for the day and am rocking a cranky baby, I try to just take it in stride. He needs some free time and I need to “earn my keep”.

God, I just read what I wrote there and it sounds pretty bad. I’m just not sure what side of “bad” it’s on. Bad because I’m such a slacker I do nothing but feed and care for children or bad because I’m apologizing for wanting a break from feeding and caring for children?

Anyhow, that’s my un-organized rant on all things housekeeping. Aren’t you so glad you read this far?

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