Quote:
Originally Posted by peaceful_mama
I need to know how you all cope if you still have to provide pretty much constant outdoor supervision and yet still maintain a home you're not embarrassed to have people see.
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Hi!
We have four children 6 and under (#5 on the way in 4 or so weeks) and the reason I do watch them outside is because we have a 29 month old and lots of predators here (grizzlies that frequent the property, 3' tall eagles- bald and golden, wolves- average male is 200lbs, etc...) and they are efficient and generally enormous. Our boys look tasty and while the three older ones can roam around together with periodic check-ins, the 29 month old doesn't consider proximity as important as they do for safety; he checks in when it's been a certain amount of
time rather than when he's a certain distance away. Sooo, I'm out a lot with him moreso than the others.
We're also renovating, so I waive my otherwise likely embarrassment for now, but when we're not renovating, I keep the home clean(ish- we live on a farm with lots of clay and sand and wind, so there's only so much we can do) by having ample built-in furniture that houses everything we own and having very little in our home.
I decluttered about four years ago now and then we moved across country and came with only what would fit into a 4'x8' trailer hooked to our van. From there, we've increased our holdings, but we have very little stuff still. My rule is that if I cannot maintain it without undue stress (what I am willing to exert to have it), then it cannot be in our home. If someone else is willing to take up the charge of keeping it in its place and well-maintained, then that is fine. But nothing comes in that puts us over the limit of what we can reasonably and willingly take care of, keep tidy, have a place for, etc....
Four years ago when I decluttered and until this past December, we were also renting and couldn't do built-ins, so I built shelving that could be removed and leave only two screw-holes to fill for each full height shelving-case. My hard-core strategy for a tidy (if rather empty) house was to get rid of furniture too. Our living room was one open space with floor cushions that I made and we had no dressers or decorative tables or anything like that anymore. The boys share a big bed and I built shelving for their toys that were kept tidy in rectangular baskets. We kept all of our clothing, diapers, towels, sheets, etc... on shelves over the sorting/folding table in the laundry room. Kitchen cloths and towels were kept in a cupboard in the kitchen.
We reduced our dishes to only enough for one meal for all of us so that dishes were done after every meal and never piled up; I was usually finished washing at the same time as the dc were finished eating. That worked before, but now we haul water and I would prefer to wash dishes once per day because it is energy consuming to boil water that many times for washing. I've always been conservative with water use, but adding boiling to the task makes it impractical and less energy efficient, unless we only do it once/day, and then it's much better than keeping a water heater hot.
So, the way I do it is to have little so there's little to maintain/keep tidy/cean.
Quote:
Originally Posted by peaceful_mama
So, since it seems like I'm constantly out supervising kids lately, and I'm dinner-cook, that's all I've gotten done. So....by this weekend, our place was in *desperate* need of a good team-deep-clean. Which did happen, but not without much crabbing from DH...
So....how do I either A) keep it from getting that way again, while still supervising the kids or B) get DH to understand that since he lives here and he agrees that our children should not be playing while those kids in question are out without direct supervision....he should just accept that he will need to help me with an hour or so of team-clean-up on Sunday?
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I would minimize possessions firstly, unless you've already done this.
Can you put up a winter fence or a fence that doesn't even go into the ground like a really big dog-run fence? Those are really expensive, but if you could ram four rods of rebar into the corners of your yard area, you could put up that not-so-pretty-but-effective (and relatively cheap, if that matters for you) rolled netting and while you'd still have to check dc a lot, you'd be able to move around a bit more, if it would suit your space to do that.
I would also be appalled if dp were not willing to work at keeping the home clean. I was appalled when that
was the case for us, but after 7 yrs, we are finally at a point in our life wherein dp notices and doesn't gripe about cleaning!
Living out of the city and him seeing that the cleaning we do is not just for cosmetic reasons- but reeeaaally needed- has given him a full understanding of why we do it. For years he thought that whatever cleaning I was doing couldn't possibly have been necessary, but of course, he was unaware of the dirt and didn't see me doing it, whereas now, there's just no denying the need, so he contributes of his own initiative.
BTW, if it only takes an hour of team-cleaning on Sundays to get your home clean, I think you must have this issue
amazingly under control!!! And there's no way I would accept complaining from dp about that either; it's an hour. Seriously.
How many weeks are you pg now?