January 30, 2008

No More Mopping Floors . . .


I made another goal for 2008 today, and this is one I think I can stick with: I'm not mopping my floors again. Ever.

Why you ask? Well if you're a mom, you already know why. It's because every time I do, the very day the mopping gets done there is a huge explosion of food or drink from someone's bowl/plate/mouth/cup, onto the freshly mopped floor. It's never water that spills on the mopped floor at my house. It's always:


  • oatmeal (hardens in under 10 seconds to rocklike substance)

  • spaghetti sauce (has the farthest splatter record and stains clothes)

  • milk (makes everything smell sour)

  • applesauce (virtually clear when dry, so if not wiped immediately, invisible)

  • orange juice (lovely to walk on with bare feet if you like to stick to the floor)

This week I thought I might escape the usual spillage. I'd gone three whole days without a spill since mopping. But tonight - in the middle of a fit - the princess of our house (not me people, I'm the QUEEN) dumped an entire glass of milk on the floor.


I'm done mopping!

9 comments:

Matt said...

That was a really funny post Sammy. The floors are usually my responsibility since Mindy usually takes the bathrooms. Man, how did I land that sweet deal!?

I don't mop nearly as often as I should, though I am compulsive with the broom and vacuum. Hey, 2 out 3 isn't bad especially when you take into consideration the male factor.

chelsea said...

As weird as this sounds, I would LOVE to mop my own floor right now!! I can not WAIT to have my own kitchen back!! Be thankful you have your own home! It could be worse! haha

The Carlsons said...

An ideal solution would be clear sheets that just pull up whenever that kind of stuff happens. You're lucky you made it three days. My favorite part of the clean up is the splash of milk on every chair leg and table leg. Cleaning up after spilled milk is like cleaning up a crime scene.

Tobi said...

The chore I loathe more than any other is the dishes. Loading, unloading, washing, rinsing, drying..it's all a dirty job to me.

Emily said...

You should do what I do---spot mop-- clean up when someone spills something and then occasionally spot clean where it looks or feels dirty. I only mop the whole floor about once a year. I do sweep and vacuum a lot though.

The Queen Vee said...

Cleaning is so easy in 2008 with all the cleaning products, swiffers, super vacumns, dishwashers, washing machines and dryers that we have. Some things haven't changed though as cleaning still has to be done regularly and often. When I was younger we did a thorough cleaning every Saturday with everyone having an assignment, mine was the bathrooms. I use to take a book in with me when I went to clean, which meant I was reading instead of cleaning. It would take me hours to clean those 2 small bathrooms. To this day I put them off until the last, never-the-less I'm grateful to a mother who taught me how to clean and the importance of doing it well and often.

Sue said...

This is precisely why I don't bother mopping. Such an exercise in futility!

OK, Victoria, I am properly chastised and will try to mend my ways...

Sue said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anderson Zoo Keepers said...

Ditto to you, ditto to Audrey. I think the main time I lose my temper with the kids is with spills. I feel terrible about it but DANG. I have to admit though that the wood floors I've got now are 100x easier to clean then the awful, terrible military-grade linoleum we had in Arizona though. That junk never came or looked remotely clean.
By the way, I've BANNED various cereals because of the cement properties of the cereal. I also will leave certain after lunch messes for a time before I clean them up because it's just easier - like mac n' cheese. It's a whole lot easier to clean up hardened mac n' cheese then it is to clean up soggy noodles. I know, I'm a bad mom.