Poop, puke, and my new cleaning lady

Ah, the joys of motherhood. They abound, don't they? The tiny arms that stretch around your neck super tightly and the little voices that say "I yuv you, mommy Hedder."

And then there's the chaos. Gosh, who doesn't love the chaos?!

I decided to start eating my elephant this weekend. That's what my mom calls it. Our house is -ahem- a tad bit brim-filled and if there's a snowball's chance in hell we're going to be moving this spring I knew I needed to start tackling some of the trouble spots now. Besides, what else were we going to do when it's twenty degrees outside with no snow to play in?

So I started in the two back bedrooms. Griffin's and mine. We call it my bedroom because I slept in there for almost two years while Grif was a wee babe and it holds my dresser and armoire. I.E. my clothes.


Before cleaning it out, it looked like this. You couldn't take more than two steps into the room without hitting debris. I ended up with an entire trunkload full of clothes and shoes to donate to the Scholar Shop.



Griffin and I started in on the monumental task of cleaning. See, Grif is a superb cleaning assistant. He really enjoys the work, and he's not half bad at aiming dustmops where I tell him to point, so he gets about half of the dustbunnies that live in the house. Better than working by myself, right? We had managed to clear out the closet floor and a nice walkway into the bedroom when I wandered into the office to find my Shark cordless vacuum brush thingy.

I smelled it. Binnie was laying with her head down on the rug, trying to avert my eyes. I eyeballed her anyway.

"Binnie? Did you poop somewhere?"

No eye contact.

Right there on the rug, a pile of puke. Dog puke. Or rather, dog poop puke. See, Binnie is disgusting. She eats poop. Sometimes it doesn't agree with her (the fact that it ever does agree with her makes me sick) and she pukes it up.

BINNIE! GO OUTSIDE! THIS IS DISGUSTING!

She went outside, where she proceeded to puke down the kitchen steps.

I stormed around the kitchen, getting my rubber gloves on, the garbage can out, the necessary supplies to shampoo, disinfect and deodorize my carpet. I left my helper in my bedroom, working hard at eradicating the dustbunny problem.

After cleaning up Binnie's mess, I realized it was awfully quiet at the other end of the house and my helper hadn't come looking for me. Both bad signs.

I found him in my bathroom with an old mop. Why was the toilet bowl water gray with floating dust bunnies in it? Oh, yeah. He was helping me. He was mopping the bathroom floor. And the hallway floor. With water from the toilet bowl, which thankfully had been flushed.

So there you are. My bathroom is clean. My closets are organized (see photos for proof, Mom). My dog is disgusting. My son is a big helper with a future career in janitorial services which will come in handy with our disgusting dog.


Life is good.


- H