Cleaning and Uncleaning Your House

Photo: L. Navarrete

Lately, my house is cleaner than usual because it is for sale. So it has to be ready to show on short notice. However, I did not get any calls to show the house for several weeks, so I started to slack off with my daily cleaning chores. Then the call came: "Can I show your house today? We can be there in 20 minutes." My response? "Yes, but I have lots of kids including a newborn, and it would be great to have a little more time to prepare." Thankfully, they were viewing houses again a few days later, so we arranged an appointment for noon on Thursday.

I woke up at 7:00 on Thursday morning to my sweet 7-week-old crying for milk, of which he had also woken at 1:00, 3:00, and 4:30 am. But no going back to sleep for this tired supermom because I had a house to clean and five hours to do it! Thankfully, three kids were going to school, and my amazing mom was coming to help out with the babies and with the cleaning.

The second floor was my first task: making beds, putting clothes away, dusting, cleaning the bathrooms, emptying trash cans, putting out the white towels/comforters/soaps, turning on lights, opening the blinds, hiding all the clutter that was on every table and dresser. All this is because, of course, you can't show a house that looks lived in. But this home is more than lived in when we have five kids including a newborn with reflux, a 2-year-old that loves to bring her sippy cup onto the carpet, and three other kids that track in dirt. Plus we have a beagle that runs away every day, jumps on dining room tables, steals our food, and knocks over Caleb's full cups of milk. Despite the reality of our crazy life here at home, it has to look like a model home if we expect to sell it.

The baby was tired from waking up all night, so he slept most of the morning, enabling mom and me to complete the house preparations! And Sadie was entertained by Mickey a little more than I would usually allow. I had not completed all the vacuuming, but it was time, so I loaded the car and set out to pick up Emma. Mom let the prospects in and waited on the porch while they examined the property, hopefully noticing how perfectly clean it looked.

As soon as they left, I spent a few minutes uncleaning the house to make it ready for kids again...