I want a clean Dining Room!

One of the things I was completely unprepared for in motherhood was the mess and I want a clean Dining Room. My kids can literally DESTROY my dining room in 30 seconds.  For some reason, growing up I don’t recall us kids making such a mess. (Of course! we were all angels as kids!). Either that, or my mother was a saint. It’s also a high possibility, that as a child, living in a multi story home; the mess was kept upstairs and the downstairs dining room was mostly spared. Either way, living in a Brooklyn apartment, our dining room doubles as a play room and somehow my home is a perpetual mess these days.

I try to keep it at bay and most days I turn a blind eye. I have one non-negotiable time – Friday, in preparation for Shabbat the entire dining room must get cleaned, kind of like a reset, a fresh slate to start the week.

The other days during the week my standards are lower, but every so often I can’t handle the mess any more and must do something about it.  I also refuse to spend more then half an hour cleaning for what is undoubtedly going to get destroyed again. With a bad back; that lets me know quite emphatically; that it doesn’t appreciate me bending down lots. I’ve created a system that lets me clean up real fast and sometimes even gets my kids roped into helping! (Hey, if you want your back to help you out of cleaning I can teach you that trick).

My Quick and Easy Tidying Method

Step 1:

The first thing I do is survey the mess and eyeball just how bad my kids wrecked the dining room this time. What in the world is a wicker basket doing in the middle of the room and I’m sure I put that seltzer bottle in recycling – they must have decided to play drums with it again.

Step 2:

I grab the broom and sweep. Everything on the floor gets swept into one fell swoop of a pile. And I mean EVERYTHING. Clothing, shoes, toys, papers, garbage. Dang, I didn’t think there was THAT much stuff on the floor. While I’m sweeping, larger items, think chairs and big toys get situated in their respective spots.  At this point we can start to see some semblance of order returning and so far it has taken just 10 minutes.

The reason why I love this method, is because; very quickly you can see clean space and results of your work. Being totally honest, yes, even us adults need positive reinforcement!

Step 3:

This is where we do the bulk of the job. First, I try to rope my kids into helping. I find they are more cooperative if I give them one job that they don’t have to go too far to complete. They are less likely to complain they are “too tired” or it’s “too hard”.  If that doesn’t work well, I threaten my kids that if they don’t remove their junk from the pile, I’m trashing it. This usually affords me another couple minutes help and a few more items off the floor. Then, working in categories, I pickup and put away: shoes, laundry, garbage, miscellaneous stuff and toys – that usually covers it all.

Step 4: