Spring is such a rejuvenating time of year. I love watching the blossoms singing out in their pretty girl pinks; bold, deep variations on rose and simple white; smelling the jasmine and lilac; standing under a neighbour’s carport completely roofed with bunches of wisteria and just drinking in the smell. Two or three weeks later and all this is gone, replaced by green leaves, green grass going to seed, wind, hayfever, and the unpredictable temperatures of the season, from lows of 2 to highs of 30, and everything in between.
Before having the girls, I used to find a bit of (time-limited) house cleaning satisfying, and scheduled an hour of it every week on the afternoon I left work early. At this time I would not only cover the basics, but also rotate through the longer-term, more ‘maintenance’-like tasks like damp dusting the blinds and cleaning the windows. While mum generously paid for a cleaner for us for the first eight months after the girls were born, I haven’t done any of that sort of cleaning for nearly four years now, except in a rather ad hoc way, and some of the windows are almost Havishamesque. The girls have drawn on some walls in crayon which I thought at the time would easily wash off, but didn’t when I attempted it recently. The walls of our bedroom are quite mouldy in parts due to inadequate ventilation; the window sills are covered with dust; the kitchen floor is building up a layer of sticky grime while parts of the wood’s varnish are quite absent; and I think we are due for another steam clean of the carpet. In short, I am developing an appetite for some spring cleaning.
The first step in spring cleaning is de-cluttering, and I’ve been doing that all year. It was one of my ten New Year’s Resolutions in fact, something I don’t usually do but I had such a bad year last year that I decided to make this one better, starting with a list of goals. I gave away a car boot-full of baby clothes to the local women’s and children’s shelter and countless bags of clothes for two year olds to my cousin and a friend. We had some floor-to-ceiling cupboards built in to the bathroom to help us store some of the clutter. Yesterday I sorted through the girls’ toy boxes and our glassware for items to donate to the girls’ preschool fête, producing a good bagfull there. We’ve come a long way, though we’re not there yet.
At the prospect of losing some of the toys they haven’t touched for a year or more, the girls played with them yesterday and they didn’t let me give away all that I wanted to. I still think that rotating toys is a good idea, though rarely find the time or energy to carry that out. And as for maintenance-cleaning, standards drop, there are other priorities, yet it could become something that the girls and I do together as an activity – bless them, they still think housework is just another form of play.
Speaking of play, last week Rhea asked me if she could have the scissors and I supplied them without question. Fifteen minutes later Rhea and Lara emerged giggling, Lara with an A-symmetrical haircut (mostly short on the right and long on the left) with the odd chunk missing here and there. She was quite happy with her new style.
I can’t say that I mind too much. Spring is the time to tidy things up, and even cut back, but let’s face it: it will all grow back soon enough.
