Working At Home and Keeping Up ~ Can It Be Done??
By Kara Kelso

For those of you that don't have children, or you men that do and your wife takes after them… you don't have a clue as to how difficult is. If you never worked at home, by yourself, with little ones running around - really you would never know! My house is a constant mess, and gets torn up just as fast as I pick it up. Just because you are home all day does NOT mean the house should be spotless. Think about it this way: if you are working a full time job outside the house, what would happen if your kids were home all day by themselves? And I'm talking little kids, not even ones that can pick up after themselves or get brainwashed by a video game. Your house would be completely trashed right? Well that's exactly what happens here, every day. Sure I catch MOST of the major messes in progress - such as a kid in the fridge about to dump eggs on the floor or in the bathroom flushing some important item, or in the living room with a smuggled glass of water dumping it on the TV (I'm on my second TV, VCR, and Dish receiver since my son turned 3 a few months ago).

Alright enough complaining...but seriously...HOW do you keep up with the kiddos while you work as well?

You simple CAN'T! Accept your house being scattered with toys for the next 10-15 years, but just take a few minutes each day to pick up and vacuum or do a load of laundry, or do the dishes.

Personally I tend to let a lot of it sit until Thursday when I
listen to the Mary Goulet show while cleaning my entire downstairs. First I pick up all the toys in the living room, then I run the vacuum during the commercials, then I start picking up the front room/dining room (also where the computer is), pick up Jillian's mat under her high chair and clean it up, vacuum again, then move to the kitchen. I have a similar routine on Sundays where I try my hardest to not even turn the computer on before I get at least some housework done.

Twice a week I manage to pry myself from the computer and get a whole lot done in a short amount of time. Now if I did 10 minutes of picking up every day that would be almost silly since it would get trashed again the next day (now remember its the same toys getting drug out every day, so really just picking them up twice a week to vacuum is makes more sense!)

Now one of my biggest problems is laundry. It's not a problem
getting it done, but it is a problem getting it put away. Seriously
we live out of the laundry room. My clothes haven't hung in the
closet for months! My main problem is the bedrooms are upstairs, where I can't take the baby. My room has too much for her to get into, but I can't clean it because I can't take her up there! Also, I can't put away my clothes when she is asleep because we only have a 2-bedroom house so her crib is in my room. I suppose I really should be doing it when she takes naps, but I always feel like I should be getting computer work done instead. Since she takes 2 naps a day, maybe I should be putting away clothes during one nap and working during the next? Heck I work all day anyway; I should be taking more breaks…

Ok there I go rambling again...and just think my laundry could have been put away by now if I hadn't been blabbering LOL (no just kidding - Jillian is asleep!)
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Author Kara Kelso is the owner of Mom's Market, the online shopping mall for busy moms. With more than 300 stores in over 10 catagories, you are sure to find just the gift you are looking for. Mom's Market