What a Woman Does in an Hour

The laptop was open, perched precariously atop the counter. A sink full of dishes, piles of laundry, dirty floors, too much on the to-do list all wait on standby.  And can someone tell me why are there two radios were going at once in the same room?  Small children tinker in corners, scattering toys, chucking sippy cups half full of milk and spraying it around the room. The dog walks by and poops on the floor.  I should probably call that vet about that problem.  I look at the clock and decide to take an hour, one hour, to tidy up the house.  How much can I accomplish in 60 seconds?

GO!

10:00 a.m.- feed kids snacks.  Refill sippy cups.

Pick up sippy cups off floor.  Wipe up leaky mess.

Right. There’s dog poop.  Clean it up.

Flush toilet.  DOES NO ONE KNOW HOW TO FLUSH around here but me?!

Give dog the stink eye as she fights the baby for her banana.

Pour toilet cleaner into bowl.  Sweep bathroom floor.  Clean bathroom sink, mirror and toilet.

Sweep entryway.

Sweep kitchen floor.  Find inexplicable hard, white substance on floor that seems like cardboard if it weren’t so …sticky?  Get down to eye level with it and finally decide to scrape it off with my fingernail.  CLEAN! sort of… dog walks right over it.

Check email.

Check phone.

WILL NOT CHECK FACEBOOK.

Lose ten minutes to Twitter instead at least it’s not Pinterest, that’s a good two minutes per DIY nail design and there are about eighty bazillion of those suckers to scoff at, alternately fall in love with and wonder who has that kind of time.

Clean windowsills in kitchen. Red smears only look like blood.  It’s marker.  So why do we keep going through boxes of band-aids like they are candy?

Change diaper.  Not mine!  My recent UTI makes me wonder if maybe adult ones should be an option.  Realize that I just hit my six year anniversary on diaper changing.   Maybe I can get a prize for that?  Or at least a chip like they do in AA.

Unload dishwasher.

Load dishwasher.  So sick of the damn sippy cup and all their moving, yes  moving, parts.

Turn around to find the baby on top of the kitchen table.  Move her and wipe it down.  Wipe down chairs crusted in yogurt and other debris.  Give it another few days and I could probably sell the whole table and chairs set on Fab.com as textural art.

Look at laundry.  Nearly miss having the laundry monster bite my ankle as I give it a customary death stare.  I think I’m up to ten loads a week now.  If H & don’t work out I would have at least one less load.  I would rather coat the kids in swathes of rubber sheeting than sacrifice that stress reducer.

11:00 a.m.  HA HA! Eat that the laundry monster growls, “I will live to see another day!”