I Started Doing Dishes*

I’ve been trying something new this week.

I have a confession: over the past few months, we sort of got in the habit of not doing our dishes after dinner. We’d put the food away and load the dishwasher, but inevitably we’d be tired or the kids would need us for something and we’d get pulled from the kitchen….

…and then just not go back to do them until the next morning.

I never loved it, but sometimes facing the messy kitchen at the end of an already long day was just not something either of us were terribly interested in. We chose to relax instead, and for a while it was what we needed.

Lately though I haven’t loved waking up to a sink full of dishes. Now that I’m running and doing yoga in the morning, it just added one more thing to my to-do list.

For the past week, I decided to actively focus on going to bed with a clean kitchen every night. It seems like such a basic thing, but our kids have an early-ish bed time so it’s sometimes hard to juggle everything–family activities, going for walks, bath, stories, etc in the short window between dinner and bed.

…and by the time we actually herded them INTO bed we weren’t super motivated to go clean the kitchen.

That being said, it has been reeeeeally nice to wake up to a sparkly kitchen. I’ve made a point of changing some of my habits to ensure most of the kitchen is clean right after dinner, then we go back and finish after the kids are in bed if need be. I don’t always want to do it, but I get it done and I forgot how much I enjoyed not having to think about it in the morning.

So. Look at me being all adulty cleaning the kitchen when you’re actually supposed to.

Miss S has also been on a cleaning spree.

Her room has long been a point of contention between us as it’s typically a bit of a disaster. She usually likes it in a state of chaos where she can see EVERYTHING, and most of it is all over the floor. Despite my aversion to doing dinner dishes, I can’t stand when there are things all over the floor. It drives me bonkers.

She and I have been working hard on some strategies to help keep her room a little tidier, and I have noticed a big improvement. It usually takes some prompting from M or I (read: nagging) but she is cleaning up more often.

Today, she did it spontaneously WITHOUT BEING ASKED.

I came upstairs and found her room like this and I wanted to weep tears of joy.

Instead, I gently pulled her aside, wrapped my arms around her and told her how much I loved her. I told her this was the best gift I’ve received in a while and that it was such a big help to me. I gave her a big ol’ kiss on the cheek and she was absolutely beaming.

So look at that. Miss S and I are both turning over new leaves this week.

I like it.