the game of clean up

   monday and friday are usually big cleaning days at our house. i feel like i'm recovering form a lack of keeping-up over the weekend on monday, and gearing up for not keeping-up over the weekend on friday. vacuuming carpets, steam mopping floors and a super thorough cleaning of the bathrooms. in general, my kids enjoy the clean up. their is an age that either children love the vacuum or fear it. of coarse i have yet to reach the age of loathing the chore of vacuuming, although i hear it will someday come. i've tried a few methods to get the kids in on the act. "you better clean up your toys or i may vacuum them up..." this never ends very well. how could it with a beginning like that? my poor boy.

   we have things like small child sized brooms that play music. i turn the vacuum over to my boy of four and don't think twice when his vacuum lines in the carpet don't overlap the way i like them to. my daughter of 1 1/2 enjoys wiping things and dusting. we play music loudly and dance around with our cleaning accessories singing all the clean up songs that i can think of or make up. it really is quite fun. i pray it will last long into their teenage years.

    the funny thing is, while at the table grace still enjoys purposefully dropping food on the floor and then singing the clean up song while gazing over her tray at it. i'm begining to wonder if this exciting type of cleaning up isn't going to just backfire on me. "it's okay if i make a mess mommy, and it's so fun to clean it up i'm gonna let you do it!" i can just imagine. for now i will enjoy their enjoyment in the game of clean up and be thankful for it.