Cleaning with Kids

I am almost constantly amazed at how quickly a completely clean home can go to filth. I'm not talking about messiness, I'm talking about filth. We have a rule in our home that every morning we all spend 20 minutes cleaning during the week. All five of us (not six because Dad is off doing his keeping-our-nation-safe-Army stuff) get up, turn on some music (I almost always let the kiddos pick), and get to work.

Each day the workload is bit different. Some times it's sweeping, dusting, mopping, picking up, tidying up, organizing, scrubbing, etc etc. Some days it's bathrooms, other days it's the coloring box (we have a box where all of the kids' colored creations go and we occasionally have to go through and purge what isn't very important, and then set aside what is important to go in the end of year coloring book). 

Today on the menu was an actual cleaning of my house. I kid you not that the house has been cleaned for an hour and already there is dog hair collecting in the corner. I'm beginning to believe that my Chocolate lab sees a clean floor, goes over to the corner, sheds what looks like enough hair to make a woolen sweater, and then walks off. Is this the dog version of marking their presence? You know, like how single individuals will leave an item of theirs in their significant others' home/vehicle/stuff. He's not allowed to pee in the house so maybe this is second best!?

Our other dog quickly got to work tearing apart his dog toy so that the stuffing would be all over the floor. Maybe he's trying to create the appearance of snow. The only problem with that theory is that he's 8 weeks old. He has no idea what snow looks like. :-/

My home looks funny to me right now. With the new pup in the house, all of the rugs have been removed from the floor. Don't judge me, do you want to clean up puppy accidents from a shag rug? I didn't think so. Now, to be fair, he has had almost no accidents in the house. He is an excited pee-er so occasionally a droplet will come out when he's SO happy to see you in the morning. But even that is pretty uncommon. He is quite genuinely the world's greatest puppy. But, until I am 100% certain that he is solidly beyond those days (and me and Hubs are solid on his cues, body languages, and signs) the rugs will stay rolled up in the corner of my living room, looking funny.

Well, I'm off to sweep the floor for the second time today! Hope you're having a wonderful Halloween and that you have an awesome "Holy Night" tonight (Halloween = Hallow's Eve = Holy Night).