The Love of Cleaning.

I often wonder if Claire is really truly my daughter or if we just expected her because her bassinet was so close to the boys in the hospital nursery. I wonder this because she seems to be nothing like me. You see, she is not a very girly girl her most favorite activity is to be tossed around and wrestled with. She seems to be the one who get the most dirty and she is always seems to be falling and getting hurt (ok, yes that it kinda like me). But the biggest clue in my mind is the fact that she loves, I means LOVES, the vacuum. Every time she sees it out, she gets this big grin on her face and runs toward it with arms wide open. She will embrace it like it is her long lost friend. She will scowls when it is moved away from her. She laughs at it like it just told her the funnest joke in the world.

This behavior is really foreign to me because I HATE to clean, vacuuming included. It was a very great day in my life when we hired a cleaning service. My favorite day of the week was when I got to come home after the cleaning people were here. Oh, to walk into a clean and spotless house was truly a glorious moment for me (even though I knew that in a few moments it would be totally destroyed how kids manage to do this is beyond me and another post entirely). I love the look, the smell, and know that I was not the one who had to clean it...definitely one of life's small pleasures.

So I am really not quiet sure were Claire got this behavior from. Maybe that is why the other day when I got the vacuum out, she looked at me so strangely and seemed to say, "Mom what in the world are you doing with the vacuum?" This was when I first witnessed her love affair with the vacuum cleaner.

Yes, I have to say it is sad but true that I now have to do all my own house cleaning (this is not totally true because Jeff does help). No more house cleaners, no more pleasure of walking into a freshly cleaned house, no more looking forward to house cleaning day, no letting the house go because in a week the house cleaners will be here. (tear, sniffle) When I had to make the call to cancel the service, I got all choked up and a little small part of me died inside.

I know that my mother is shaking her head at me and asking herself, "Where did I go wrong?" So now I am now left to clean the house and try to nurture Claire's love of cleaning with out any professional help. I only hope that I can do it.