A cottage can get pretty darn messy and dirty after 9
days.
And today in a short 2 hrs with the five us together , we managed
to make it sparkle.
I have to say, as much as this surprises me…I like cleaning the cottage with my family..alot.
It gives me a huge sense of accomplishment.
I honestly never thought this possible. Keep in mind me
and my BFF in high school got fired on our first day of the job at 15yrs old as
“cleaning ladies”. Honestly had no clue
how to mop a floor. She has no idea how to vacuum. That’s a bit of a problem when
a lady leaves her house for 8 hrs and expects to come home to a clean one. There
is only so much dusting one can do.
And I have to admit I still don’t really mop floors very
often. Kind of like the gas thing. I just never learnt properly nor feel
especially inclined to want to learn.
And then my first job out of University was a good one
and I could afford a cleaning lady and have had one ever since. I know it
sounds crazy but even when my kids barfed
all over our floors I somehow managed to delegate this to my husband!
See how honest I am???
So I have always felt some guilt that my kids don’t do
mopping and cleaning toilets in the city because we have always had a cleaning
lady. They do tons and tons of other chores but not the big stuff. Clearly this
is where my own parents went wrong and I did not want to make the same mistake
with my own kids. I did not set out to raise spoiled brats now did I?
So I decided to make them clean lots and lots at the
cottage-all of us! Heavy cleaning. Real cleaning. I still don’t mop floors as
we have hard wood and vacuum them..but I do plenty of other stuff. My kids are
amazing vacumers, bathroom cleaners, dusters, organizers etc…
We left the cottage so pretty and tidy and clean and then
came back to the city and unpacked everything here and organized it all and
made dinner and cleaned up after it. Two out of three even mentioned that it
was a great teamwork day. I think aliens have inhabited all of our bodies!
So all that to say cleaning up was fun. Especially
together. And it made us all feel close and connected and accomplished. We ate our
homemade vegetable soup at the counter at the cottage today for lunch with
baguette and homemade creton and a candle and recounted our favorite days of
our holidays. We then took our last family Jacuzzi of the week and watched a
bunch of our family baby videos and laughed out loud at how cute and little
those kids were.
Tonight we had spaghetti and arugula parmesan salad and
sat and talked about our favorite meals on vacation. Most cooked by our amazing
personal chef-good old DadJ
It was a wonderful, wonderful week. I could not have
asked for nicer kids this week, nicer weather, better skiing conditions, or
more family fun. The team work and sparkling house was just icing on the cake.
And as I sat there looking at the clean counters and
floors and smelling the lemony fresh of the clean sinks….I realized with both a
sadness a certainty that Spring Breaks like this are going to end one day soon.
I will have two more march breaks with a son in high school and after that he
will be in college. My middle son is planning to climb mount Kilimanjaro for
school in Sec 4 (if he is selected) and that would mean only two more march
breaks for him too as they train for 2 years and use those 2 weeks off school
to do so.
So it made me feel lots of things to have this realization.
Mostly longing. Sadness. And also pride. Pride of coming so far. Missing them
soon, but also excited in some ways for the years ahead. I had my kids so young
I still have a lifetime out there for myself. A whole life ahead of me waiting
to be unwrapped. Weird to think about but true.
But mostly my thoughts were on today and now and knowing
with certainty that I will also try my damn hardest to make every moment count.
Like we did this week. Like we will do another week and another one again.
Family is life’s greatest and most precious gift. And
above anything else in my life it will always be the place that I feel I should
at the end of my life looking back..feel most proud of. And intend to
And PS the washing machine still remains the best place
to hide a gift for me as very unlikely I will find it anytime soon as I try to
avoid cleaning machines as much as possibleJ
