How to Become a More Organized Stay at Home Mom

I am the queen of procrastinating and laziness. I hate cleaning. I am the type of woman who never had anyone over to her house because she was just too ashamed with how filthy it was. There was dried soup and juice on the table for three days, crayon drawings on the wall for weeks, and there was also dishes that sat in the sink for weeks. I ended up just using paper plates and plastic silverware. I was that bad.

One day, as I was sitting on my stained and dirty couch, I looked around the disaster area that we called the front room, and realized that if any one called the child protective services on me, I would loose my children, not forever, but until I could prove that I was a fit mother and house keeper. Now, I know the reason I was like this. I had never had a mother or father to teach me how to clean and how to keep house. The nannies that we had were dirty unkempt people my dad usually felt sorry for and hired them to help raise us while my mother was in and out of the hospital and my father was working close to 60 hours a week to support his four children and pay the piling stack of hospital bills.

As I realized why I don't clean, I also realized that it was something I can fix. The old adage of " You can't teach an old dog new tricks" is not true in this case. I'm a 23 year old mother, a wife, and while I never had the proper training to be either of those things, I realized that I wasn't doing what I was supposed to. I didn't keep the house. I made sure my children were clean, with a bath in the morning and a bath in the evening for my son. But as to the cleanliness of the house, it was terrible.

How I remidied this wasn't easy, but in the end it was worth it. I called my grandmother, a woman who has always inspired me and loved me for who I am. I told her of my issues, and as ashamed as I was to admit to the woman I idolize and one day hope to be like, I told her all. I was depressed because of my husbands deployment and didn't feel like doing anything, the house was a terrible mess, and if the housing office came and inspected the house, we would be evicted. If CPS were called, I would loose my children.

She told me some very simple easy ways to become a better housewife and mother. Clean one room a day, and keep up what you have cleaned. Also after the children had gone to bed at 8:00 for my daughter and 9:00 for my son, to relax, take a deep breath, maybe have a nice cup of tea, and watch my favorite show. During the commercials, CLEAN!!! It was easy as I cleaned one room and then the next room each day. It was easy to keep everything cleaned up once I had gotten through the muck and the mess. The hard part was to not slip back into my old ways. I love reading, I love doing art, and I love playing on the computer all day. If I could prioritze my time, I would be able to have the house as tidy as I wanted it to be. I cut back on my online gaming, I cut back on reading until the house was at least decent enough to have company over. I didn't paint until after my children where in bed and I had tidied up the daily mess of toys and dropped food hidden in cracks and corners of the house.

Next is the laundry. I have no problem wearing a pair of jeans for two even three days at a time. I never did anything but sit on my butt all day so my clothes were never really dirty. My son, while he is being potty trained, runs around the house in either his little boxer briefs or nothing at all, and my infant daughter wore onesys all the time. Now that I am becoming more active in the home and with my childrens play time, I had to clean at least one load of laundry a day. My clothes always went into the washer and dryer with my sons and daughters clothes. Some people like to separate the childrens clothes from their clothes, but honestly, with anywhere from 3 to 6 sets of clothes, I saw no point in that. It's not like my clothes will shrink because they are in the wash with smaller clothes. If you do one load of laundry a day regularly, bump it up too two loads. My grandmother, and even my adopted father, my best friends dad, told me, FOLD YOUR LAUNDRY AS SOON AS ITS DONE!!! That way it doesn't pile up and you don't feel overwhelmed.

When I first started my cleaning regiment, I would feel so overwhelmed that I wouldn't know where to start. Then I just started sweeping everything on the floor into a pile or into a corner. I sorted through it, clothes in a laundry basket, toys in a pile to be brought into my sons room, trash I would leave alone unless it was large. Books onto the bookshelf, and everything else that wasn't supposed to be left out on the floor went into a box to be sorted through later. Sweeping up all of the stuff into a pile made the mess look smaller, more easily managable, and I found that I could get an entire room swept and cleaned completly in twenty to thirty minutes.

Im not saying that you have to do exactly as I have done, but set yourself a schedule, compile a list of things that need to be done, from worst to easiest, and just do it. It took me a week to completly clean my house. Now I am not embarresed to have friends and family over. Put some music on, or pop in your headphones to your MP3 player, and you can do it and get it done. When it came to the easier things on my list, I would do at least three of them a day. You can do it. If I can do it, I know you can.

Good luck and happy, or at least successful, cleaning