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She’s never cleaning, so why is everything always … clean?
I’m a grown adult, and yet I still seem to have illusions of little magical elves emerging while everyone is asleep to clean the house. Aren’t we supposed to just … wake up and *poof* it’s all clean? Perhaps I’m having a hard time shaking this vision, because I had the ultimate magical elf growing up: my mom, Barbara. When I got married and had kids, I found myself wondering why my house was always messy and dirty. Sure, I don’t really think there are elves who are supposed to be cleaning up after us, but I couldn’t remember seeing my mom cleaning all the time.
And then it hit me: it wasn’t that she was never cleaning, it was that she was never not cleaning.
We have a little joke in my family about my mom’s sixth sense. We call it her “Barbdar,” and it’s our loving way to recognize her ability to seek out items that are done being used, or need to be discarded or cleaned up. If you’re drinking a glass of orange juice and finish it, within milliseconds of setting it on the kitchen counter, mom’s “Barbdar” is engaged.
Grab. Rinse. Deposit in dishwasher. Done.
There have been many occasions where one of us reaches for a glass we weren’t actually done with only to find it “Barbed” and resting quietly in the dishwasher.
And though we tease her, I have to admit… it’s her constant little cleaning that keeps her from ever needing to do much big cleaning. It seems that she’s almost never cleaning, and yet everything is always clean. And it’s not just that we hardly notice her cleaning, she hardly notices it herself. She’s not doing it out of anal retentive behavior or some need to be perfect, it’s just her basic habit of keeping up with things. It’s quite brilliant.
So thanks, mom, for teaching me that really big tasks are best tackled in consistent, small steps.
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That’s a habit I need to develop!