Good Housekeeping gone bad

The other day I was reading an online survey of housekeeping habits. It came to my attention that we are woefully messy people compared to the norm (that is, assuming that the messy population out there is not just avoiding the survey thus skewing the results, for shame of admitting how they really live). Most of the survey respondents said things like they vacuum and scrub the bathroom daily. I'm lucky if I vacuum a couple of times a week, and the bathroom gets scrubbed once. I get mad at Chad if he leaves a big toothpaste goober in the sink the day after I've cleaned it, because I don't want to have to look at that for the next six days, but I certainly don't have the time (or desire) to do this stuff daily. Even when I do something like clean the bathroom - there are weeks when I clean it, giving everything a wipe down, and then there are weeks when I clean it, climbing into the tub and actually scrubbing off the scum. One survey respondent even said they dust daily. I dust when I can no longer watch TV through the buildup on the screen. It bothers me to have a dirty house but there is just always so much else to do.

Add a baby into the mix and the housework thing obviously gets much worse. I don't so much mind the floor being littered with toys (though when those toys turn into a million pieces of Lego, I may change my mind). We do have a big plastic tub in the den, and I round them up and throw them in at the end of each day. But I still cringe inside when a grubby little hand smears oatmeal all over the highchair. The pad is washable, but I only do it once a week or so, and the crusty bits that form in the meantime drive me crazy; and the plastic can be scrubbed down, but it takes some time to get into the grooves to clean them all out. Since he's in the chair to eat three times a day, I could scrub my life away just on highchair maintenance alone. And don't even get me started on the laundry.

Not only is there more housework, there is now much more maintenance. Liam loves his walker, and you would know it to come into our house - our once freshly-painted baseboards are now sporting a shabby chic look. Spending most of my time at home rather than in the office, I notice more now - that our back door is starting to hang a little crooked, that the paint on the garage is peeling, that the spot where Captain puked on the rug never quite came out. (Eww, huh??)

I have always said I don't like the idea of hiring help with the cleaning. It's our mess, we'll clean it up, thank you very much. It feels too much to me like the establishment of a hierarchical society within our house. I don't really enjoy salon procedures for the same reason - it feels enough like master and servant to make me uncomfortable. And, I would feel weird about pretty much anyone being in our house while we're not home, and I'd feel even worse being there when they are cleaning and I am not. However, I've known many people who've said the same sorts of things, and who now think that their cleaning people are the best money they've ever spent. We aren't there yet - certainly not while I'm not exactly raking it in on EI - but you never know, this downward sliding feeling may be the changing of the tides. It would not be the first time that Liam has made me do a 180 on some point of view.