It will probably look slightly messier than this when my husband gets home, because by then the kids will have been home from school for 2.5 hours. And, I will be ok with that. And, so will he. Because:
Here’s why I don’t make sure to have a spotless house when my husbands gets home:
1. I work full time from home. Because I collect a paycheck, I need to be working during the day, not doing chores. Sometimes I will do chores on my lunch break, but more often that not I don’t take a lunch break so I can be done with work a little earlier to help and be with my kids sooner after school. Which leads me to point #2…
2. Our 7-year-old has some social challenges and classroom challenges that we are working to overcome. (Actually I just wrote an article about how having a messy house HELPS him with this.) So, three days a week I push PAUSE on my workday, pick him up from school, and hit un-pause and finish my last hour of work from a therapy waiting room. The other two work days, as soon as I am done working we dive STRAIGHT into 20 to 30 minute work/exercise session on school work and therapy homework. I get no down time.
3. I move straight from work or therapy with my 7-year-old to making dinner. I may not have the house spotless before my husband gets home, but I DO have dinner ready when he gets home. That’s a BIG win in my book. Both my 7-year-old and I have special dietary needs so cooking at home is necessary for now even on days I’d give my life to order pizza. All this to say, I MAYBE have a few minutes to myself while dinner is in the oven (yesterday I had about 30 minutes because it was a crock pot meal, HOLLA!) but usually don’t sit down to chill until after dinner. Either my husband or I will clean up after our daughter fits whatever else she can into the dishwasher once dinner is over. (But typically, my husband is finishing up the daily exercises I started with our 7-year old.)
So, those are my big reasons for not having a spotless house when my sweetie gets home from work. I would LOVE to do that for both of us one day, but that day is unlikely to be within the next six months. And yes, my older two kids CAN and DO help me with housework, but they do homework first, then one unloads and one re-loads the dishwasher. That’s about all that all of us can accomplish before 6 p.m. on a workday.
And I’ll be honest, these days? I’m inclined to feel nothing but pretty ok about all of it.
So, if you’re in Brie’s season of life where a spotless house by 6 p.m. is something you can achieve on the reg, I say GO FOR IT and BE PROUD! And if you’re like me, and you’ve got other goals usurping that household gleam for now, then GO FOR THOSE and be proud, too.
<3
