Winter Cleaning

Before I had Leo, I swore I'd never let my house be taken over by baby objects.  I used to accuse the 'baby industry' of marketing all of these unnecessary products to desperate mothers.  As I sit here looking at my living room which now has a play-gym, a swing, a bouncy seat and an exersaucer in it, I realize that I have become one of 'those mothers'.  

Before I had Leo, I also swore that I'd never become one of those stay-at-home moms who sat around in sweats all day.  I swore to myself that I'd at least make an effort to shower, put on makeup, and get dressed as though I was going to work.  As I sit here in sweats and a ponytail at 10:30 in the morning, I realize how hard it is to actually make an effort to look nice when being thrown up on and nursing constantly is now a daily part of my life.  I still must make an effort though; if only for my own self-esteem! 

Ben and I have decided that we want to have a minimalist home.  I know, I know...you're probably laughing and saying that it's impossible to accomplish this with a baby, but we're going to try to do it anyway.  We might fail miserably, but we'll consider it an experiment.  

Both Ben and I are extremely visual people.  I grew up in my mother's house which looks like a museum, and Ben is a graphic designer.  Here are some reasons that we want to create a minimalist home:

Less stressful. Clutter is a form of visual distraction, and everything in our vision pulls at our attention at least a little. The less clutter, the less visual stress we have. A minimalist home is calming.

More appealing. Think about photos of homes that are cluttered, and photos of minimalist homes. The ones with almost nothing in them except some beautiful furniture, some nice artwork, and a very few pretty decorations, are the ones that appeal to most of us. You can make your home more appealing by making it more minimalist.

Easier to clean. It’s hard to clean a whole bunch of objects, or to sweep or vacuum around a bunch of furniture. The more stuff you have, the more you have to keep clean, and the more complicated it is to clean around the stuff. Think about how easy it is to clean an empty room compared to one with 50 objects in it. That’s an extreme example, of course, as I wouldn’t recommend you have an empty room, but it’s just to illustrate the difference.

Here's are some examples of minimalist rooms:

(*Reasons and photos courtesy of "How to Create a Minimalist Home")

So today I'm devoting two hours to cleaning and decluttering the house.  Even if I have to break up the two hours (which I probably will since I also have to tend to Leo), I am determined. Last night Ben helped me by moving a ton of bins I had organized down to the basement.  A few of the bins were filled with Leo's old clothes.  Believe it or not, our 2-month-old son has already outgrown his 0-3 month clothing as well as most of his 3-6 month clothing! He's enormous! This morning I put him in a pair of 6-9 month corduroy pants and a 6-9 month sized sweater. Both fit him well, although I did have to roll up the sleeves a little bit on the sweater.  I can't say I'm surprised.  I remember being pregnant and walking down the street in the springtime, and having random people come up to me saying "Well, at least you'll miss the summer!"  I was only 5 months pregnant :-(  

It's not even 11:00 a.m., and so far I've managed to clean/declutter Leo's nursery and the master bedroom!  Leo slept the whole time!  I wore him on me in my Ergo carrier, and vacuumed the upstairs.  The white noise produced by the vacuum put him right to sleep which enabled me to finish cleaning the rooms quickly.  I'm going to take a little break, set my timer, and then clean for one more hour.  Today I am devoting to the upstairs, and tomorrow I'll concentrate on the downstairs.  I also have about 10 loads of laundry to do.  If there's one thing I'm certain of it's this - being a stay-at-home mom/homemaker is a full-time job!