Dear Diary: A Day of Cleaning

Tomorrow I’m scheduled for a hysterectomy. Today, trying to prepare for being out of commission for a while, I cleaned the house. Sent the kids outside. Scrubbed and mopped and glowed the kitchen floor, cleaned the bathrooms, etc. Molly came in and needed to ​poop. I told her to use my bathroom because I hadn’t cleaned it yet and I was still cleaning the kids’ bathroom. After a bit, she called to me in a nervous voice, “Mom?” 

​She admitted she’d been playing with my eyeglasses while on the potty and dropped them in. She had already had an explosive stool and the glasses were sunk into it at the bottom of the bowl. I fished them out then sent her on her way so I could continue cleaning up. Then my little sister came over to use my computer. I was helping her with it downstairs when Charlie came in complaining that he had pooped in his pants. So he and I went to the bathroom to clean him up. There was no poop in his pants. I told him it must have been just gas and sent him on his way. (By now they had been out much of the day and were FILTHY dirty—dirt up their noses, in their eyes, smeared over their faces, hair gritty from throwing sand—yes, it is against the rules—and smelly as all get out.) Went back to help my sister. Molly came back in bringing Spencer with a bloody thumb (she is like an older sister, taking care of “the brothers” as she calls them). Following them to the bathroom, I walked through the kitchen and saw some odd dark thing on the floor that I had just washed. Picked it up. It was soft. I smelled it. It was the poop Charlie was certain he had passed. It apparently had fallen out of his pants on his way to tell me that he had had the accident. Scrubbed my hands raw (again) then washed Spencer’s wound, did first aid, and sent him on his way. Went back downstairs to help my sister. Heard a lot of complaining. Went back up. They had all come in to potty again in the freshly cleaned bathroom. The floor was now covered with sand. Re-swept it. Went back down. They all decided they were done outside. I went back up to the kitchen (yes, the newly mopped and glowed kitchen) and they had tracked in dirt, leaves, and more sand. Re-swept the kitchen floor as they got naked for a bath (a bit earlier than usual, but I couldn’t let them keep messing up my newly cleaned house). They were too dirty to share one tub as we usually do, so I made two wait for me in the bathroom while I got the other two settled so they’d quit tracking dirt all over the house. When I returned to the bathroom, those two had spilled bathwater with the bath toys onto the floor and walked through it with their dirty feet, leaving muddy prints all over the tile. I got them into the tub and re-mopped the floor. As I finished up with those two, Jason got home from work, so I let him bathe the others while I vacuumed the terribly gritty carpet and emptied out shoes full of sand. I also cleaned the front porch where they had built a “flower box” with no container, just dirt and sticks.
 
I’m ready to be put under and out of commission for a while, I think.
​—Monday, February 3, 1998