Why It Takes Me an Hour to Vacuum

It is 8:03 in the morning.

I get the vacuum out of the closet.

Then I realize that I need to get some laundry done.  Since Spencer hasn't left for the school bus yet I tell him and Josh to bring all the laundry baskets up to the laundry room.  Then I have them sort the laundry: whites, reds/browns, greens/blues, towels.  They've been doing this for several months, but it still takes them forever.  Seriously, what takes me less than 10 takes them at least 20.  I clean up after breakfast and remind them again and again and again to get back to work.

The boys finish sorting and I start a load of laundry.

Spencer leaves for the bus.  Cole tries to follow him and throws a tantrum when I deadbolt the door so he can't escape. Meltdown central.

I get Josh to help me pick up all the toys and such off the floor. This is usually the part that takes the longest when vacuuming.  We pick up one room only to discover that Cole has dumped toys out in another.

Growl.

I send Josh and Cole downstairs with explicit instructions to not come back up any time soon.

I head towards the vacuum. Tess starts to fuss because she can't see me.  Apparently, if I can't be seen the world will end.  I put her on the couch with a few toys.

I actually start to vacuum.  For about 60 whole seconds.  Tess fusses louder and louder.  The world is ENDING!!!  WHERE IS MY MOMMA!??!

So I pick Tess up and put her in her crib with some toys.  Ah, this is new.  Usually cribs are just for sleeping; she's not used to sitting up in the crib.  (Yes, she's nine months old and still very immobile.  I love my immobile babies!)  She happily starts to attack the mobile and I get back to vacuuming.

I vacuum half of the living room.  Cole comes upstairs.  With his hands up in the air.

And poop on his face.

"Uh-oh," he says.  "Hands in pants!"

This is his latest thing.  He likes to take his clothes off.  This leads to him taking his diapers off.  If his diaper's not off then his hands are down his pants - especially after he's pooped.

The boy is slathered in poop.  All over his hands, on his face, in his hair, on the clothes he's only been wearing for about 15 minutes.  I try not to gag.

I lead him to the bathroom, wrestle his clothes off of him, wipe him up as best I can, and throw him into the shower.  For the second time in less than an hour.  I hand him a bar of soap, tell him to wash the poop off of him, and hope that most of it will have come off on its own before I have to get in there to scrub him.

I clean the poop off of the parts of the bathroom he touched.  I clean the poop off of the parts of me that he touched.  I go downstairs and hunt for more poop.  Miraculously, I find none. I pray that he didn't decide to hide his poop anywhere.

I go back upstairs, check on Cole, and start vacuuming again.  Two whole minutes pass.

Cole starts screaming from the shower.  He's gotten soap in his eyes.  (I know, you're thinking "Well, duh, you gave a two year old a bar of soap!" to which I would explain that he's used lots of soap in his short life and knows all about it.  This time it was just an accident.)  Anyways, soap in eyes, crying, rubbing hands on face, getting more soap in eyes.  I try to help him get it all rinsed off, which pretty much soaks the arms of my long sleeved shirt.

I wrestle Cole out of the shower and towel him off.  He runs away and of course ends up on my nice living room couch.  Tess freaks out because she has seen me and the magic of sitting up in the crib has worn off.

I get out new clothes for Cole and hunt him down.  He has decided to pee on the floor. 

Growl.

I try to tell myself that the silver lining in this is that he didn't pee on my nice couch, but it's not very comforting.  I wrangle him into his clothes - he fights tooth and nail once he sees he has to wear overalls.  (You can't put 'hands down pants' with overalls!)  I send him downstairs again and then clean up the pee.

I start vacuuming again.  I vacuum the rest of the living room, the little hall, and the boys' room.  And then I hear Tess really freaking out.

I go into her room and discover Cole in the crib with her.  He's knocked her over and she's stuck against the railing.  She is Not Happy.  (For once Tess has a real reason to cry!)  I rescue Tess, chuck Cole out of the crib, and start vacuuming her room.

Cole is not happy about his unceremonious eviction from the crib.  He decides to unplug the vacuum while I am using it.  Three times in a row.

By the third time I swat his bum and send him on his way.  (Yes, I should have just stopped everything and put him in time out.  But I didn't want to have to police the time out chair.  I just wanted to FREAKIN' FINISH VACUUMING!!!!)

I put Tess back in the crib with a couple of different toys.  She cries when I leave the room but I ignore it because she's the fourth child and her cries have no effect on me at this point.

I start to vacuum my bedroom.

Josh starts freaking out about some stickers in the book he's coloring.  OH NO!  One of the pages in his coloring book has come out.  OH NO!  Now another one has.  I try to patiently explain to him that it's okay and no big deal.  Oh, and if he doesn't like the pages coming out he probably shouldn't pull them out.

I go back to vacuuming my bedroom.

Cole jumps on the bed.  Cole falls off of the bed.  Cole cries.  I stop vacuuming, pick him up, console him, and then tell him to Go Play With Josh.  NOW.

He does.

But not before unplugging the vacuum.

I contemplate running away.

Then I finish vacuuming our bedroom, bathroom, and closet.

It is 9:14 in the morning.