Mondays are home bluring days and an update on the bed

Mondays for us in TheMadHouse are home blessing or bluring day as I call it.

This means that we go round and polish all rooms, vacuum, sweep and tidy and I do me we. Each of the mini mads has their own pinny and feather duster, they also have a sweeping brush and can use the hand help vacuum too.

This way the house is all prepared (as much as possible) for the rest of the week.

This weeks intensive clean is the master bedroom, so I will concentrate on cleaning in there, doing the skirting, cobwebs, windows etc.

I try and instill the boys not to have all their toys out at once and also to put things away when we have finished with them, everything has a place.

Whilst I have hoovered etc the boys have been doing some colouring and plating on the swings in the garden.

We have also made a decision to cancel the bed and asked them to come and take the damaged one back.

The eldest MiniMad has bunks in his room and they have been sharing, youngest in the bottom and it has worked well, so much so they asked if they could share. To which we said a resounding yes and spent much of yesterday afternoon re-arranging furniture.

So now the minimads share a room and we have a spare room with a sofabed, wardrobes and some of the larger toys in.

This means we also now have a study/ironing room with much more space in, so I plan to move all my scrapbook stuff upstairs so that I can do it when they are on the PC. We are also putting back my nursing chair from the garage.

Learning to FLY

I am an avid follower of Flylady - it is a great routine, which means that the housework should never pile up and that spring cleaning should never need to be done.

It lets you build up new habits and also develope routines that suit you and your family. Over the last two years flylady has been a godsend. It helped me come out of my PND and also meant that when I was in hospital MadDad and other family knew what needed doing and when it needed doing.

It also means that I have time to concentrate on being with the MiniMads and that they understand that the house needs cleaning and help out. Both have their own feather dusters and pinny's and help with the polishing, wiping, tiding etc. They put their clothes in the wash basket, they get the next days clothes out and put them in their designated place too.

We felt that it was important that the boys understood how the house run and take responsibility to help out. I want them to grow up being able to look after them self and a house, to be able to load a washing machine and iron. I want them to be able to be an equal partner to the person they fall in love with.

MadDad and myself have a nice division of labour, both concentrating on the things we do best - he does all the nasty jobs, the cat litter, the bins and dishwasher on a morning!!!

He understands that I like things to have a place and that I NEED to have the bedclothes all nice and tidy and the duvet right upto the edges of the duvet cover and when I came out of hospital he made sure that they were perfect for me.

I think that what makes our relationship work, concentrating on the things that we can do for each other that take no doing, understanding our little peculiarities and in fact loving each other because of them.