Life as a parent is an interesting mix of calm and insanity. Sometimes you get stressed out, and sometimes you’re fun. Sometimes things are clean, and sometimes they just aren’t.
Clutter may bother some people, but most of the time, I’m not one of them. I will get into cleaning binges once in a while, but for the most part, I’ve gotten highly skilled at ignoring the mess.
I literally don't even notice it anymore
I work from home in addition to watching and homeschooling my two young kids. Because there is so much to do on a given day, some things take precedence over others. If the kids make a mess while I sneak in some work, that’s fine with me.
I tend to have tunnel vision when I’m working and have gotten really good at ignoring the mess around me.
If the toys are spilling out of the toy box or they left something out while playing earlier in the day, I don’t feel an overwhelming urge to stop what I’m doing to clean it.
Cleaning isn't a top priority for me
Instead, my family and my work are my top priorities. If we had a busy day and I didn’t get to the dishes, that’s just how it is. If the kids were tired and we didn’t clean the living room, that’s just what happens sometimes.
There is only so much time in a day, so when I’m in work or schooling mode, I tend to shut out what the house looks like. It’s how I get so much done. If I was worried about constantly cleaning up after the kids, I couldn’t do my work or teach them.
My time is already limited with kids, work, and homeschooling. Prioritizing things is the only way we get anything done at all.
There just aren't always enough hours in the day to clean up everything
While I don’t always leave the house a mess, I tend to let it go if things are out of place. It doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it bothers my husband, but then again, he isn’t here during the day.
I may have cleaned, and it no longer looks like it when he gets home. Or maybe I had deadlines, and I had to work instead of doing the dishes.
Maybe the 3-year-old was super clingy all day
Plenty of things get in the way of a clean house, and instead of stressing out about it, I let it go.
There are plenty of things to get worked up about, and toys on the floor aren’t one of them for me. Neither is the fact that I didn’t get all of the laundry put away. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not always that important.
Thankfully, my kids are now at the age where they can help clean, so if I tell them to clean up, they will, but it won’t be as clean as I would do it. I find that I’m OK with that. There are varying degrees of what you can consider as clean. Some days good enough is just fine.
