The war will be fought with Swiffers and Lemon Pledge

I am declaring WAR. An all-out battled to the death from which no one emerged unscathed and the casualties will be severe. The target of the impending attack: MY FLOORS.

With a dog and two cats, pet hair has always been a problem, but the kind I could generally solve with a broom and the occasional damp paper towel. But add a baby to the mix and suddenly the pet hair dust bunnies grow into tumbleweeds of Cheerios and Goldfish crackers and bits of sandwich and half chewed fruit and sticks and leaves and the kind of foot-blackening dirt that sticks to the floor unless you scrub it with straight bleach and a toothbrush. If I don’t sweep, dry Swiffer, wet Swiffer, mop and vacuum EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. the baby gets so covered in dirt he looks like that kid from Charlie Brown who vibrates with grime. I can’t take him out in public after 3 pm out of fear someone will call CPS. And if CPS comes to my house I’m SCREWED.

I took up the rug this weekend (sidenote: what the HELL was I thinking when I picked out a shag rug for the family room? It’s basically a giant upside down yarn mop that traps every crumb and hair and is IMPOSSIBLE to clean) thinking it would be easier to do a quick mid-day sweep of just the hardwood floor but all it did was create a barren desert for the dirt tumbleweeds to tumble across. Plus my problem with sweeping wasn’t so much rug-related as 300-wooden-blocks-two-dozen-chuck-the-trucks-four-sippy-cups-and-a-partridge-in-a-pear-tree-scattered-acr0ss-my-floor-related.

The most permanent solution to my problem is to get rid of the pets, although I don’t think I can bring myself to actually do that. (A quick Google search for “how long do cats live” reveals no hopeful results.) I suppose the other thing I could do is restrict snacks and meals to the high chair but the idea of making Baby Evan sit still for the 7 or 8 hours a day he’s eating something is laughable. I think he would rather give up food than be strapped in a chair that often – and since I JUST got him to eat I’m not doing anything that might hurt his love of stuffing his face.

So I’m left with war. The kind of furniture moving deep cleaning usually only reserved for the holidays or right before my mother comes. (CRAP. My mother is coming TOMORROW.) I’ll buy stock in Swiffer and reacquaint myself with my Dustbuster. I will pick up toys three times a day instead of once. I will not rest until the baby can strip naked, dump a cup of juice on his head and roll across the room without a single speck of dirt sticking to his body.

Ok, maybe that’s a little too ambitious. But I’ve got to do something.

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8 Responses to “The war will be fought with Swiffers and Lemon Pledge”

  1. Meg says:

    I’m the last person to judge. I have two cats, my own long hair, and I’m the messiest cook ever. Even though I don’t have a baby rolling around in my mess, my floors are hardly perfectly clean, no matter how often I run the Hoover Pet Cyclonic (see, I have linoleum and craptastic apartment carpet).

    • bebehblog says:

      I’ve totally given up on the half of the house that’s not baby-proofed, especially the carpet runner on the stairs. You literally can’t tell what color it is anymore from all the cat hair.

  2. Amy says:

    You could knit a onesie out of swiffers cut in strips and let him roll around. Problem solved!

  3. I empathize. All our floors are tile. Light gray. So everything shows up! UGH! I have to mop the whole house every other day or it gets out of control. I just force myself to do it. I’ve actually become quite the mop nazi. But i make myself feel better by thinking of all the carpet I don’t have to vacuum. ;)

    • bebehblog says:

      Luckily we replaced our beige vinyl in the kitchen with ceramic tile in a color that should be called “You’ll never have to clean me again!” so it hides the dirty pretty well. UNluckily, the color of the floor does nothing to prevent the dirt from transferring to the baby.

  4. Eileen says:

    I have bamboo pergot and a dog that sheds A LOT. Luckily the rug in the living room is short, so easier to clean than shag. My weapons of choice, after failing miserably with the swiffer of every sort, are an old fashioned broom, followed by my Bissell Pet Eraser vacuum(or something or other, which works on wood), and then a Shark Steam Mop. Wow, they should pay me. If I could afford it, I’d sub a dyson for the bissell.

  5. My parents have a dyson. It’s full of magic! I want to steal it when they aren’t looking and I don’t even like cleaning!

  6. Emmie Bee says:

    eff some hardwood floors. I gave the floor cleaning to my husband. It took some coercing but now it’s his “chore”. Also: I have 100% googled the lifespan of my animals- on more than one occasion just in case the research were to change. lol

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