How Many Times Will I Have To Do This In My Life?

Having children means that you have to do a lot of cleaning. I mean A LOT! Actually, CONSTANT is a better word. Because if you want your house to be as clean as those pre-kid days, you'd have to be cleaning day and night. Or maybe it's just me. I clean up a room and it's like the children have clean room radar. I can almost hear the little dee-dee-dee-dee sound of said radar going off in their heads. "Room is clean... Room is clean... Must rectify" *said in a robot voice, of course* and they immediately go right behind me and mess it up again. So sometimes I ask myself (about specific cleaning tasks), how many times will I have to do this in my life?

It first started out with questions like:
- How many times will I have to clean baby poop (or pee) off of the carpet, my clothes, the car seats or any place where poop can leak, squirt, or ooze onto?
- How many times will I have to clean spit up, or barf, or drool off of those same things?

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Then it became:
- How many times will I have to clean up spilled or thrown baby foods off the floors and walls?
- How many times will I have to clean mushed up bananas, avocado, carrots, peas, pasta, etc. out of this d@mn high chair (because it had so many weird, little crevices that made it so hard to get clean)?

Mind you, I didn't mind cleaning up this cute face of course, it was just the darned high chair that bugged me.

And a little later it was (and still is):
- How many times will I have to vacuum up crushed crackers and cookies from the backseat of our car?
- How many times will I have to get on my freakin' hands and knees and clean up spilled juice (that you have to go over a bunch of times, otherwise it's sticky for days)?

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And now it's:
- How many times will I have to put back the couch cushions, and pillows, and blankets after the monkeys have made forts, or beds for their stuffies, or have just decided to throw everything everywhere just for the fun of it?
- How many times will I sweep up crumbs that get tracked to every corner of the house, because my kids do not understand the meaning of "please eat that at the table, don't walk around the house eating food!"?
- How many times in my life will I have to pick up little game pieces, or Polly Pocket doll clothes, or other teeny tiny toy parts (that toy companies seem to love to include in toys these days), that are scattered all over the house? Does every little girl toy for ages 3-8 have to include beads, or sequins, or tiny shoes, or tiny combs and brushes, or small elastics, or teensy barrettes? Why so many freakin' accessories? Does my daughter really need all of this kind of crap?

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Anyways, I am not trying to whine over here, I just want to legitimately know, how many times? A hundred? A thousand? A hundred thousand? Inquiring minds want to know. Then maybe I can steel myself for that number and say every once in a while, only fifty more times to go, and I'll never have to do this again. Though I'm betting that when that day happens I'll be crying about how my kids are all grown up, and where did the time go, and oh they grow up so fast! Because really I don't want to speed up time and I don't want them to grow up yet. I guess I just wish had a magic wand or that special nose twitch from Bewitched, to magically make it all clean. That would be just perfect.

Which kid messes are you tired of cleaning up? Do you wonder any of these very same questions? Or do you have different ones, perhaps?

Oh, and here is one mess I never thought I'd have to clean up. Thankfully, I only ever had to deal with it once. My son had gotten a hold of a crayon and decided to chew on it and turn it into a crayon paste while I was making dinner. He wasn't even two at the time. I didn't know crayon could be turned into a paste, but now I know. It can!