How they do it, I don't know

I have a maid, you know.

And I still have crap to do all day long.  I do the laundry most days to leave her with the ironing which I really detest, from the bottom of my soul.  Laundry is a lot.  All my boys suffer from a congenital neglect of things, which includes everything from toys and computers to clothing.  We cloth diaper.  Result: three loads per day, at least.

But I also do dishes about three times a day, including the stashing away of the dried dishes.  I scrub toilet bowls at least two times a day.  Why can't they learn to use a toilet brush?  It's not as if this was the most complicated gadget in the house.  Even Jacob can use the DVD player, for goodness' sakes.

I pick up after the boys all day long.  It's exasperating the way they leave their stuff everywhere.  My attempts at teaching them to clean up after themselves are undermined by the fact that we have a maid.  They figured out quickly that she will pick up whatever they drop and I detest that.  So much so that I considered letting her go (since she doesn't listen to me when I tell her not to pick toys up.  Or rather, when she does, then the nanny picks up.) But then she would be without a job and I'd feel bad.  Oh, and I would have even more work to do.

[Yes, I tried the "the toy isn't cleaned up so it goes away" approach.  It doesn't work.  They have too much stuff.]

Trash.  Grocery shopping. Three meals a day, lunch bags, assorted baking. Attending to banged knees, mediating 1001 fights a day, steri-stripping gushing scalp wounds. Mending ripped pants, volunteering at the pre-school, attending PTA meetings, changing poopy toddler five times a day...

It's 7 pm and I'm beat.  Most days, I go to bed before nine, and then I sleep badly.   How do women do it when they have no help?

My sister-in-law's house is always in perfect order. She's got four kids (granted, three of them are girls).

I'm deeply in awe.

And never, ever want to be in the situation where I have to do every single thing by myself. If anyone asks me, we stay overseas forever. I'm just not Martha.

(See all that paper?  Guess who picked it up...)

Comments

[Natalie]

Or you move here and forget about neatness (heh, not possible, you're German...). It's not like MY house is neat, and I haven't expired of clutter-overload. I haven't cleaned a toilet bowl for 7 years, but I have a much higher tolerance for mess and clutter and toilet oogies. Then again I have 1 girl, not 3 boys.