My dear mum, bless her, was a GREAT mum. SO great, she made our beds, tidied up after my 3 siblings & I, did ALL the housework and all the cooking. I'm sure my dad changed a nappy or two over the years but I didn't actually witness any of that going on. It was a very traditional 1970's arrangement & childhood from what I recall.
But fast forward 20 years....
When I bought my first home I struggled to look after it myself. I had chronic renal failure in my 20's and used to be a workaholic too. That left little time & energy for housework [my least favourite thing]. I'm good at systems organising & tidying & changing the furniture around/home decorating etc etc. But housework was not my fave and I was pretty hopeless, pretty undisciplined. It wasn't so bad considering there was only myself to look after & not a huge amount to be done. But teaching myself to clean & be more disciplined as an adult, was not at all pleasant.
When Jeff and I built our family home together many years before kids came along we both worked pretty intensively and we shared the housework but again, only the two of us to clean up after.
Now with 5 children under 7, housework is far more necessary, important & very hard to keep up with because we have so much less time! From early on, my kids have always been involved in helping around the home. And there is always something to be done.
Recently my eldest Georgia,has been wanting to have her own shower, not sharing with anyone else and I think that is absolutely fair enough. She turned 7 this year and deserves to start to have a little privacy. So I agreed that she could start showering by herself on two conditions.
1] She had to be able to turn the shower taps completely off by herself
2] She needed to help me clean the kids bathroom
So when I was offered to try Dettol Power & Pure products, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to put together a little cleaning basket just for Georgia, with some cleaning necessities & new products to use.
So there she is up above, with her ginormous rubber gloves, her Dettol Powere & Pure Bathroom spray & little bathroom cleaning caddy. Can you believe she was so excited to be having a training session? Lets see how enthusiastic she is after 20 cleans.
Anyway, the products were great. Here's some info you might want to know next time you are re-stocking cleaning products for your home.
- The Dettol Power & Pure range is for powerful cleaning & has no harsh chemical residue.
- New Dettol Power & Pure harnesses the power of its active oxygen formula to penetrate and dissolve tough grease and soap scum while the active ingredient breaks down into water and oxygen, leaving no harsh chemical residue behind.
- And as it is from Dettol you can trust it kills 99.9%* of germs *Such as E. Coli & Salmonella.
- The new Dettol Power & Pure range is available in two formats; a Multipurpose Spray for Kitchen messes with an Oxygen Splash fragrance, and a Bathroom spray, ideal for removing tough soap scum. Available in Fresh Mountain Spring Fragrance.
After George finished cleaning her shower, the bath, then the bench & basin [yep she's a cracker!], I went on & used it in our ensuite bathroom [mum was coming over so it needed an extra bi of sparkle!!] . I found the smell so much more pleasant than what we had been using.
I already use the multipurpose spray in the kitchen & very happy with how it cleans the spill overs on my glass stovetop in particular. I also love it kills most nasties. I'm a bit of a germophobe.
I'd be happy to continue using both. You can find more information about both the products here.
So now Georgia is all set to become that little more independant. Ohhhh sigh, my baby is growing up! This whole exercise has prompted me to formalise a few other things around the home too.
You see, I've been enjoying doing multiple baskets of sorting & folding while I watch a movie on Saturday but I was fed up with laundry basket after laundry basket sitting on my treadmill in my bedroom throughout the week, waiting for me to put away. I've been unable to access the treadmill as much as I would like need! Well laundry is the excuse I've been using as to why I haven't been using my treadmill anyway!
I needed a new system. Laundry wasn't going to go away any time soon. I like systems. Systems & planning get my attention. Off I went & bought a new trestle table and promptly installed in our bedroom right next to my window wall with pretty plantation shutters. Nice lighting & a view makes laundry sorting that much more pleasant yes?
I've been using baskets to sort laundry for the 5 kids, with communal smalls and school uniforms. So the baskets sit nicely along the bench & as a new bag comes up, its much more easily sorted as I'm watching a show at night. When the baskets are full, the kids are called in and they put away their own clothes. OK, so they don't really manage to stay nicely folded but they are contributing and that is what counts. I know its not ideal having this in my bedroom but I'd rather it hidden upstairs than in a living area, that never looks tidy.
So, next on my list is working on that big colourful roll of paper [photo above] I recently bought. I'm making chore charts for the kids. Just little simple ones. They are always wanting to do things like help with dinner, set the table, waitressing at breakfast, cleaning etc. Having a roster might help them squabble less over who wants to set the table. Imagine squabbling over that?
I've been searching the net for some ideas. I found some helpful lists right here on this website. You may want to check it out too. My children help out [with messing] & doing chores in lots of areas but this resource had some other good ideas I had not thought of too.
The grand hope is that when my kids leave home, they have some basic training & discipline behind them and they can not only look after themselves but be active shareholders/homecarers in their future relationships.
Do your kids do chores? Is there a roster or chart? How is it going? Mums of teenagers, do they still help around the home? Am I completely delusional?
NB. Product talk by Nuffnang. Sponsored by Dettol Power & Pure. I received products from Dettol to review on my blog. All opinions expressed are absolutely my own. Thank you.
