Confession: I haven’t written a post called “My New Best Friends – The Many Wonders of Baking Soda + Vingear” yet.  But maybe I won’t ever get to that post.  The desire to write something more fun here is going to usurp your need for context.  Oh well.  Try not to hold a grudge.  I know you would have loved it. 

Those of you who read The Lazy Organizer will be familiar with this household schedule plan thingamajig:

Morning:

Eat, Dress, WORK.

<Lunch>

Afternoon:

Free Time – for everyone, even Mom!

I like the idea.

• I like the idea that little kids work with mommy – they’ll learn how to do it and they’re still spending time with mommy, which all little children crave.
• I like the idea that Mom gets a nice chunk of “uninterrupted” free time every day.
• I like the idea that a day can be structured so simply and effectively.

But I haven’t tried it until today.  Slow learner, I guess.

Perfectionist, more like. My focus has been on gutting and streamlining and cleaning and surviving.  After I get all that done, I’ll try out the new schedule. Perfectionism is a great mask for a procrastinator.  “I can’t _____ until I have ______ done the right way.”

Say it with me now, “Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.”

Bit by bit I assimilate things I need to in the order I need to.  Can’t eat the whole elephant in one bite, right?  Right.

This morning as the kids were eating breakfast, I noticed the kitchen floor.  I swept last night, so there was only about 2-cups-of-stuff-worth to sweep up.  (How do they DO that?  It was only breakfast for crying out loud!)  Forgive me, I digress.  Again.

The point was, I could *see* the kitchen floor since it was swept recently, and thought to myself,

“Wouldn’t it be lovely to get the whole kitchen floor mopped today using My New Best Friends!”

And then I vacuumed, disassembled the huge tent the kids had me set up Monday, woke the lawn mower out of hibernation, mowed the lawn, fed the baby, changed two stinky diapers, and tidied the play room.  In that order.

But after all THAT,

I showed Doodle how to clean a floor using my Baking Soda shaker & a vinegar/water shaker I made out of an old spice jar just for the occassion.  (about 1pt vinegar, 4 parts water, fyi.)

He thought it was hot stuff.  Shake powder, sprinkle water, watch it bubble, wipe it down… Oooooh, boy, this is just toooo good!

Never to be left out, Cinderella jumped in on the fun.

“I wanna do that!”

With her, naturally, came her shadow, Eagle, and before long all three kids had rags and were excitedly wiping down the linoleum in the bathroom.  Sweet.

“Know what guys?  If you want to, you could do the whole kitchen floor!”

Their eyes got wide and there was a unanimous explosion of “All RIGHT!”

Have I mentioned I love my kids?  I do.

“We have to sweep first, though, or we’ll just make mud.”

So they helped me sweep.  C is actually pretty good with a dust pan, and D even muscled up and moved all six chairs into the front room so we could do it properly.

Then the fun began.

Shake shake shake,

sprinkle sprinkle sprinkle,

wipe wipe wipe,

wiggle wiggle wiggle…

“We could pretend it’s fairy dust!”

“Yeah!”

And then we were listening to C chanting, “Fairy Dust!” while Doodle made up his own “vin-e-GAR, vin-e-GAR” song.

Through the laughing and the powder and the chaos I noticed several things:

• The floor was getting clean!
• No one was fighting or arguing.
• The smell of vinegar was totally canceled out by the baking soda.  What remained was a beautiful LACK of smell, which was far better than the stench of any cleaner I’ve ever used.
• I was HAPPY.  Happy happy happy.  My agenda was being accomplished, the kids were helping, not hindering, and it felt so peaceful!  Busy and a little crazy as it always is with a two year old involved, but peaceful nonetheless.

Here’s the video. (Alas, the first video I took when they were singing… didn’t really take.  Man, I hate when I don’t completely push the button down to *start* taking the movie, but then I do when I go to *stop* filming.  And then I get a full 2 minutes of documenting the stuff on our island and all the kid-noise in the background.  It really is loud.  Pretty funny in its own way, but I’ll spare you.)

cleaning the floor

Speaking of sound, I’d turn the sound off if I were you.  By the time I realized what happened and reshot the scene, Eagle was d.o.n.e.  It was just about nap time at this point and he’s whining and crying in the background because I won’t give him a great big cup of vinegar.  He actually likes the stuff.  Like, to drink. Straight.  <shudder!>

In conclusion

- if any of you actually read this far -
It’s been a great day thus far.
I like our new schedule.
I think my new best friends may actually be C & D.  Bless them for being good today!