Housework Should Always Appear to be Done

My mother-in-law showed me an article from The Australian Women's Weekly (1 Janruary, 1975), enlightening women on how to be more effective with their housework, which Noelene has dutifully kept all these years in her 'Helpful Hints' folder. I'm always on the look out for ways to make cleaning the house and getting organised easier. I was surprisingly impressed with what the article said, so much so that I thought it worth sharing. The advice in this article is only for those who don't really mind a bit of mess, but are embarrassed by being caught out by visitors (and that would be me!).

Here are some snippets from the article...


First things first...

Housework Should Always Appear to be Done

• A housewife's maxim, "It is not necessary that housework should be done, but only that it should appear to be done."
• The house, or some other house, would be there all your life, but the baby won't be a baby for long. If you're going to be a stickler for dusting your dusters and polishing your polishers, you're likely to miss a lot of the fun children provide, no matter what age they are.

Next...

What You Need Mostly is Lots of Cunning

• Lower your sights and develop a lot of cunning.
• Housework should be divided into cunning and cleaning. You always ought to do the cunning bits first, and fit the cleaning bits in when you've a bit of spare time.
• If you're caught out by unexpected visitors, don't scuttle, don't apologise, and don't start pushing things out of sight. Say nothing at all, or just say airily, "Sorry about the mess. It's been one of those days."
• More importantly, don't go into competition with any of your friends whose floors are so clean you could eat off them, and then lick them clean! Most people prefer food and some good conversation, anyway.

Let's get to it...

But You Can Have the House Tidy in 40 1/2 Minutes
This 40 1/2-min plan is geared to the one-baby family (add an extra 10 minutes per child's bedroom).

1. As soon as breakkie's over and the mob has gone, fill the kitchen sink with hot water, dump in everything that needs washing, throw out the rubbish, wipe down the benches and sweep the floor (10 mins).
2. While the dishes are soaking, open the lounge room windows, pick up any papers, books, toys, bits and pieces, etc. (5 mins).
3. If the floor looks really dirty, run the vacuum cleaner over it (2 mins) and rush around the edges with a mop (1 1/2 mins).
4. Next, the bathroom. Hang out the towels, wipe the basin, brush the toilet bowl, wipe up any floor puddles and open the window wide (5 mins).
5. In your bedroom, make the bed, hang up any clothes, put dirty ones in the wash, flick a duster over the dressing-table (10 mins, if you hurry)**.
6. Go back to the kitchen and finish the washing up (7 mins).

That's 40 1/2 minutes, and you have done no housework that a good housekeeper would approve of, but all the parts of your house that visitors are likely to see are fit to be looked at.

If you've still got an hour in hand, that's an hour for cleaning, so use it to vacuum one day, mop the floors another, or any other horrible thing that has to be done once a week. If you haven't got an hour in hand, forget it. The house looks alright, anyway. The absolutely essential thing, for your peace of mind, is never to start a major cleaning job until you've done that cunning clean-up.

There are some important DON'TS:

• Never decide to clean out all the kitchen cupboards (that's asking for unexpected visitors!). Do one shelf tonight while the vegetables are cooking, another tomorrow.
• Don't hoard things with the idea they'll be useful some other time. They won't.
• Don't aim at perfection. Spotless houses are very unwelcoming.
• Above all, don't feel guilty. Housework's not the be-all and end-all of any woman's life.

* The Australian Women's Weekly, 1 Janruary 1975, 'At Home...With Margaret Sydney.'
**Do the same in children's room/s.

Card - Happy Moments_Multi-Coloured Cake

Here's another one I made today...

Card - Nursery Necessities_Pink Elephant

I managed to find some time and inspiration today to make a couple of cards. I used my friend's, Christie's, stamp set "Nursery Necessities". I think the stamp set is absolutely adorable. I plan to make quite a few cards as there are always babies being born - especially at church!

The picture quality isn't very good as I took the photo on my phone.

Absolute Shocker

After only a few hours of broken sleep, I feel like venting a bit. I had an absolute shocker with Jack last night. Dave was on a night shift last night so I was flying solo - it's much harder to cope with these things when you're alone. Here's how it went...
7.00pm - Jack put to bed, but was unsettled and crying.
7.30pmish - Jack finally went to sleep
9.30pmish - Jack woke up crying. I went in a few times to settle him. I tried picking him up and holding him for a while, I tried leaving him to cry, I tried to give him some water to see if he was thirsty, I tried giving him some food to see if he was hungry, I tried reading him a book, I tried giving him a feed (reluctantly, but at 11.30pm I was willing to give anything a go)...I tried everything I could think of, but nothing seemed to work. Sometimes, he would settle, but 15 mins or so later, he would start crying again.
12.30pm - Jack seemed upset and was whimpering even when I was holding him. I decided to give him some panadol as he may be in some sort of discomfort (sore throat? teething? he got his immunisations this week, so maybe something to do with that??). We then sat down together in his room and I read him some stories to help calm him down and to wait for the panadol to kick in. Jack calmed down and seemed happier. I put him to bed and rubbed his back, while he babbled happily. Now, I could finally go back to bed and get some sleep.
3.00am - Jack wakes up again. I go in to check on him. He's on his tummy (again!). I roll him over and leave. He makes noises on and off. I'm too tired to know what to do, so I just leave him and try to go back to sleep.
5.00am - I wake up. I must have fallen asleep at some stage, but Jack is still awake. I decide to give him more panadol. He seems to settle after this.
6.00am - Jack wakes up again. Now, at this point, I'm thinking, "Give me a break! Why are you awake?! You should be exhausted!" I decide to leave him and go back to sleep. He quietens down.
7.00am - Jack wakes up again or starts to make more noise and wakes me up. I decide to get up and feed him. He seems as happy as happy can be - go figure? I'm exhausted, but glad that he's happy.
So, that was our night. Dave just got home and I'll be telling him all about it. Interestingly, when Dave walked in the door, he saw that Jack had a huge snot string hanging from his nose and then he did a huge poo (no longer constipated!). Welcome home, daddy.

Reflections of Week 33

This week started out well, but has gradually gone down hill. Over the last couple of days, I have noticed a change in Jack. He's started to have really short naps in the day and he has been more unsettled. I feel like we were in sunshine and now we're heading into some dark clouds.

On a positive note, he has been blowing raspberries quite a bit this week and his "talking" has increased. It's really nice to listen to his babbles.

Sleeping
His sleeping has been going well. But, the last two nights he has cried quite a bit before going to bed (which he hadn't been doing at all previously). Tonight he took over half an hour to settle down. Dave and I went in to settled him a few times before he settled and went to sleep.

Jack's been rolling on to his tummy again in his cot. A few times, he's fallen asleep on his tummy. On night, he'd fallen asleep with his head on his hands. He looked adorable. Sometimes he gets upset about being in his tummy, but he won't roll on to his back (even though I know he can). Not sure what's going on there...

As I said earlier, Jack's been having pretty bad naps over the last few days. He had a great 2 1/2 hour nap on Wednesday, but since then, they've been around 30 - 40 mins. His naps are usually this long if we're out, but they've been like this at home as well. I know for sure that he's not getting enough sleep as he's rubbing his eyes a lot and he's not as happy. He won;t go back to sleep once he's awake, so I'm not really sure what to do about it, if I can do anything at all.

Jack's had a few days this week where he's dropped his third nap. This has been working really well. But, once he starting having really short naps, he's needed the third nap.

Illness
Jack's got ANOTHER runny nose. :-(

Wake Time
Not much has changed here. I'm trying to give him more tummy time to encourage his crawling. Some days he doesn't mind being on his tummy, other days he doesn't really like it. I was told today that if babies are encouraged to sit before they can crawl, it inhibits their crawling. So, don't I feel great? I've stunted Jack's development. Anything else?....

Solids
...Ah, that's right, I've also made Jack constipated :-( I was researching what food causes constipation in babies and it turns out that it was all the food that I was giving Jack. Food like apple sauce, bananas, rice, toast, potatoes, lots of dairy, carrots. It's also caused by a lack of fluid. Jack doesn't drink much water. It's really hard to get him to drink much, but we're working on it. We ended up giving him some coloxyl as it wasn't sorting itself out. I think this has been effecting his sleep and mood as well. He's not completely sorted yet, but it's improving.

So, I've changed his diet a little bit. I've cooked up a lot of vegetable and fruit 'mashes' (I put the mashes in ice-cube trays, froze them and then put the frozen cubes into snap-lock bags. This makes it really easy to get food for Jack). I've tried to use fibre-friendly foods - peaches, apricots, prunes, broccoli, peas, etc. Jack's been eating his solids really well. He has about 3-4 meals a day. He eats a lot a dinner, but not as much for breakfast.

Discipline
This is continuing to be "interesting". This week the battle has been over Jack's hat. Jack has learnt how to take off his hat. A part of me thinks, "Yay!! Jack has learnt to take his hat off! Good boy, Jackie!", and the other part thinks, "Noooo!! Jack has learnt to take his hat of!! That's so annoying!." The encounter usually involves Jack taking his hat off and me putting it back on and saying, "No. Leave your hat on, Jack." Jack then tries to take it off again while I hold my hand down on his head, preventing him from taking it off. Jack then cries. I turn my back and Jack takes his hat off....and so it goes on...My friends from bible study tell me this is just a phase. I certainly hope so.

Swimming
I thought I'd give an update on how Jack's going with his swimming lessons. Jack has been going pretty well. Most of the time, he just floats around and stares at all the people and interesting things going on. He doesn't really 'love' it, but I think he enjoys it to some extent. He's not cried since his first couple of lessons, which has been an improvement. When the instructor puts him under the water, he doesn't seem to mind and he closes his mouth, so that's good. I don't think that I'll do it next term, though. I don't think he's getting enough out of it at the moment to justify going. I'd rather just go by myself (or with some friends) and let him play in the water, as I think I can do the same things that we do in the lesson at this stage.

Routine
Things have been pretty much the same, except a some days Jack has dropped his third nap and some days he's had pretty short naps.

Here's what a typical day looks like:

7:00am - Wake, feed, solids, play
9.00am - Nap
10.00am - Wake, feed, solids, play
12.00pm - Nap
1.30pm - Wake, feed, solids, play
3.30pm - Nap
4.30/5.00pm - Wake, feed, play
6.00pm - Dinner with family
6.30pm - Bath and stories
7.00pm - Bed

Some days, I keep him awake until 9.30/10.00am if I'm going out to a friend's place or mothers group. If this happens, the routine looks more like this:

7:30am - Wake, feed, solids, play
9.30am-10.00 - Nap
11.00am - Wake, feed, solids, play
1.00pm - Nap
2.00-3.00pm - Wake, feed, solids, play
6.00pm - Dinner with family
6.30pm - Bath and stories
7.00pm - Bed

The times vary each day, but I do try to make sure that we eat dinner at 6pm and he's in bed by 7pm. I think the bedtime routine is pretty important so I stick to that as much as I can.

Playtime - with Oliver...

Jack and I were hanging out with Erin and Oli yesterday at Erin's place. Jack and Oli were having a great playtime together. This is the first time that we've noticed our babies take an interest in another baby. They looked like they were talking to each other and really interested in each other. They both wanted to play with Oli's toy crocodile and it looked like they were 'negotiating' who would play with it.

Peek-a-Boo

Jack's started to play Peek-a-Boo with us. It's so nice that he can do things himself and not just be on the receiving end. We were at my parent's place and he just started to do it with a towel. He was doing it over and over again. By the time we got our iPhone out to film it, his interest was waning (isn't that always the way?). But, you get to see him do it once before he got distracted with the tag on the towel (he LOVES tags!!) and the grass (he LOVES to eat grass!!).