I woke up this morning with a mission: to clean the house. As usual, I wasn't sure where to start—every room I walk into is messy. So I just start. I pick up a toy here, a toy there. Several hand towels, tags left on the floor from someone's new outfit, books looked at and then left on the floor. Underwear—clean? Dirty? I toss it immediately in the dirty clothes—I've had a few too many experiences with sticking my nose on the underwear, only to find that I wish I hadn't.
I walk into the kids room—all the kids' room. We tried to move Anika to her own room, but she didn't want to be alone. H has also decided he doesn't want to be alone, so he's been sleeping on the floor in the kids room. That wouldn't be a problem, except that he woke up with a couple of itchy flea bites this morning, compliments of Hershey, I'm guessing. At 5:30 this morning I endured H wailing about his bumblebee bite on his leg, and then I just couldn't help but argue for a few minutes with him about whether it was a bumblebee bite or a flea bite. In the end, he won—I gave up. Or deep in my heart I said, “H, dear, I love you too much to argue. You're right, that tiny, itchy, bite can be a bumblebee bite if you'd like it to be so.”
Whew—what a tangent. Back to my original story. So I walk into the girls room this morning, look at the mess, and take a deep breath. Ahhhhh . . . what the heck is that smell? It smells like perfume. Uh-oh. I glance quickly around, trying to get a sense of where the smell originates. I take a step and sense moisture under the ball of my foot. There, painted onto the carpet are two inch stripes of white, with a Secret shower-fresh antipersperant left next to it.
Just as I'm discovering this, H comes into the room, “Mom, train.” I ignore him, and he insists, “Mom, come, train.” I ignore him again, and his tone of voice rises, “MOM!” I take him by the hand, and he leads me to the bathroom, where he has unwrapped 13 bars of Ivory soap and lined them up to make a train. Clever.
For some reason I can't bring myself to clean up his messes right now. Still on my mission to clean house. I'll clean up later. So I head downstairs, buff a few windows, spray and shine the guest bathroom toilet, and head into the kitchen to begin wiping down counters (not with the same rag, mind you.) Suddenly I hear the sound of an aerosol can. Can't be good, I think. But I'm in a bit of a fog still from waking up too early this morning. Maybe, just maybe it's really Anika spraying before dusts. A few seconds later I manage to convince myself this isn't true, and I follow the sound to it's source—H in the bathroom spraying Lysol Air Freshener on the toilet.
It smells good, and I don't really think H's hurting anything, and I'm too tired to make him stop when he doesn't want to, so I let him continue cleaning the toilet. Any responsible parent would have taken the air freshener away and let their child cry, but for some reason I don't categorize myself as responsible—just nice. Or not. I think he's big enough not to spray it in his own face.
I'm pretty sure I'm right about not spraying in his own face, and I really do get the nice label, because I don't over react when I come upstairs and find him with a rag and the spray cleaning the bonus room rug. It has a big flowery-smelling wet spot on it, and H sitting scrubbing with a two-foot rag. In my fog, I think, cute, and walk away to do more work.
By the time I walk upstairs again, the whole house is smelling like an English garden in spring, and H is spraying the Lysol air freshener on his dresser and wiping it with a rag—dusting. Amazing the uses he has found for his Lysol spray. “Honey, I think you've used enough spray,” I say. For some reason he has decided to agree. He hands me the bottle. It feels light . . . I know it was heavy when he started.
I wonder how long our house will smell so beautiful.
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