everybody everywhere, everybody do your share
I just cleaned up the front yard—mostly—for the first time in a couple of weeks. It's not that I don't care about the bikes, scooters, and random detritus scattered around; I'd love to have a pretty yard for my own sake, to say nothing of wanting to spare our neighbors the eyesore. There's just so much cleaning up that we have to do every day!
I admit to some frustration about how much time straightening up takes away from more useful projects. We work pretty hard to restore the house to its ground state, but before you know it it's messy again and we have to do all that work again. Now, it's not that I'm annoyed with the kids—most of the mess is their stuff, but they mostly provide an age-appropriate level of help with the cleaning, when we remember to ask them. Just that I wish we could make more progress solving deeper structural problems or making better systems.
Maybe it's just that we have too much stuff overall. There's certainly lots of rideable clutter—we own ten bikes and six scooters, plus an indeterminate number of plastic ride-on toys. And while—inside at least—everything has its place, there are still an awful lot of things that have to be put back in their place on a daily basis. But getting rid of anything is hard, for reasons both psychological (we like it!) and practical (it would all have to fit in the trash can!).
With Lijah being so difficult these days we're feeling a little under-resourced generally, so maybe that's at the root of the problem. If so, maybe we can look for it to turn around in a month or two. At least we're managing to keep the house liveable, rather than descending into squalor (most days at least), and at least we manage to clear the front yard every couple weeks. It's beautiful clean now, and will remain so until 8:30 tomorrow morning. Or maybe even longer if it's raining!