Monday Morning Mess Makes Me Mad
Every Monday morning I wake up with a pit in my stomach. I dread getting up to find the mess that inevitably awaits me.
During the week, I manage to keep the house livable. Sure there's some clutter, but it's manageable. The junk mail is sorted, the tufts of dog hair are cleaned up, toys stay mostly in the playroom.
Something very sinister happens over the weekend, though. The clutter appears to multiply. For some reason everything we get out from toys to shoes to breast pumps, never manages to find it's way back to it's intended location.
The only variable between the weekdays and the weekend is TATE. (Cue the dramatic music..duh, duh, duh...) However, I certainly don't think it's fair to only blame him for all the clutter, for as I look around this morning, I see MY shoes, MY breast pump, MY water glass from the night before... Of course, I also see his socks, his pile of receipts on the counter, his unfinished weekend projects...
But, it's not just the clutter. There floors looked like I've never vacuumed them (I vacuumed FRIDAY). The couch cushions are all slouchy (I fluff them EVERYDAY). Even the g*d damned refrigerator is a mess. Jars aren't on the correct shelves, the veggie bin is a mess, and there's suddenly about 25 leftover containers that desperately need to be thrown away before we all die of botulism.
What happens to us on the weekend? Does Tate somehow possess me with his inherent man-slovenliness? Help me! I'm drowning in this Monday morning mess! I'm going to develop an ulcer from the Sunday night dread leading into Monday morning.
I'm off to begin the insurmountable task of cleaning. And to swig a gallon of Mylanta.
Labels:
Happy Homemaking,
Men?
35 People are even more brilliant:
I've found that when Maguire is out of town, our house stays so much cleaner... however, I don't think it is because he is messy, either. Rather, it's because when he's out of town, I'm not silently hoping that he'll all of a sudden start pitching in and picking up! I'm not waiting to see if he'll pick up those toys for me.
I like to think that as a single mom, I would have a spotless house.
Your weekend sounds a whole helluva lot like our weekend.
My husband trashes the place. I blame him. 100%
We have a similar scenario in our house at the weekends. In my case my attitude is 'he has the weekend off? I'm taking the weekened off'.
Not that I'm a spectacular neat freak or anything - but I'm generally on top of things in a 'wouldn't be embarrased to have people over type of way'
I have wondered the same thing! When DH goes out of town sometimes for whatever reason for a few days...the house stays CLEAN. I mean SPOTLESS. But when he comes home all hell breaks lose. I think it is that Y chromosome.
OMG LOL!!! This sounds so familiar it's sickening!!
Weekends are cause for totaly chaos in our house and I can't figure it out!
Same thing happens here! I bust my butt to make sure that the house is all clean (with 3 kids and 2 dogs) when hubby gets home from work thursday nights (from being out of town all week every week). Today is monday and I'm afraid of the dustbunnies and the mess under the hubby's computer.
Meet you at the mylanta stand.
Imagine the opposite..where he works at home during the week and I work at the office. The clutter/mess was unbearable. Thank god he's back in the office now.
Darn you blogger for not letting me use the strike tag.
This is my house too! I think I'm like Annie - I take the weekends off. I'm also too busy on the weekend actually enjoying an adult's company that I don't feel like doing dishes and tidying up.
I laughed so hard when I read your blog today. I have the same experience. My FH keeps me on my toes with his constant strain of MESS. He stays up much later then I do and when I wake up I find a variety of irritating things to pick up. Glasses, bottles, shorts, t-shirts, fleece, laptop cords, crackers on the counter, Lemons in the sink with ants all over them - that happens to be a favorite of mine. My trials with training him are well documented. casscomerford.wordpress.com
I think we homemakers would like to have a weekend off too. So we don't clean like we do during the week. Because we need a f*cking weekend too.
This is my house too, Jennifer. And I second all the people who said they like to take the weekends off like their husbands. I think that's what I do. When Matt is home I would rather be with him than cleaning. But if he is gone some evening, I clean things I normally wouldn't think about.
Oh how I hate Mondays. The kids are all off schedule and cranky and the house is a mess. I love my hubby, and he's really a good help when I ask him to be, but he'd rather sit all day and play video games and play with the boys than do work on his weekends, and why should I work when he isn't?!
I have a self-rule to not overdo myself on Mondays. Get back to schedule Monday, take care of the disaster zone on Tuesday.
I think that when the breadwinner gets some time off, we think we should too (and rightly so). It happens here too.
Yeah, yeah...it's always the MAN's fault, right? Please!!!!!
"Jars aren't on the correct shelves..."
Come on. You really have "assigned" locations for stuff in the refrigerator?
Just a fellow blogger... I absolutely hate mondays too. BUT I have to go back to this dreaded place I call work. Blah! I love your header!!!!
This is my house too, but I think the reason for our mess is that Bob tries to help some, and our ways of cleaning things are different. So I spend Monday redoing what I can. As for the right refrigerator shelves, I understand completely. I have a Little Elvis shelf with his teething rings and half eaten baby food containers. This morning I found a package of thawing chicken beside his teething rings--seriously!!
After the zillionth Monday morning where I said I was QUITTING and LEAVING HOME, we figured out that it helps to do a little family clean-up on Sunday afternoon. And then on Sunday night I make sure the trash gets taken out and the dishes get done, because if I get up Monday morning to trash and dishes, I can't be responsible for my language.
I do blame Paul for quite a bit of it, and also for the way he doesn't make the kids pick up after he does an activity with them. But it's also just the way weekends are out of the usual routine. Also, the way I expect Paul to do his share when he's home, and the way he doesn't so then I don't do my share either, because I don't want to be the exhausted housewife cleaning while everyone else has fun.
Sounds like my house, too. (And yes, I like to have 'assigned places' in my fridge too.) I've come to accept this as my life (it wasn't easy). But the thing that gets me the most is when Gavin complains that the kids touched/moved his stuff when he just left it lying out in the middle of everything.
Oh my gosh - the SAME thing happens to me every Monday morning! I can't figure out how the house got dirtier when there are 2 of us to pick it up!
Swistle hit the nail on the head. If Hubby would help Sweet Boy clean up toys/games/etc. after they do an activity together, my playroom, family room, and basement wouldn't look like someone threw up all over them by Monday morning.
Nothing wise to say , just that I feel your pain. The weekend is much the same for us. Especially weekend when my stepdaughters are over. The house turns in to a sty because GPT doesn't know how to put anything away and she's frickin 12. Uggh I feel like I'm constantly on her about that.
Anyhoo Happy cleaning.
Is there a maid anywhere on the horizon ?
Just this morning as my husband was leaving for work I said to him, "Man, it sucks that I clean the house top to bottom on Friday and I have to do it again on Monday. Seriously, some Mondays it looks like a bomb went off.
I know, the weekend interruption of the weekday routine is brutal! I love all of the family time and all of the fun stuff we cram into every weekend, but MAN. I'm exhausted by Monday. And the house is also way more cluttered. But usually cleaner UNDER the clutter, since our weekly cleaning binge is usually on Saturday AM.
I work out of the home and for us, this mess hits about Thursday. Saturday and Sunday, my home is b-a-u-t-i-f-u-l! and Glowing! it is so clean...Monday and Tuesday it is casually clean. By Thursday it looks like a train wreck - and then we do it all over again. Sigh...At some point it just becomes one. more. thing. to do, and by Thursday and Friday, it's just too much. I'll bet your weekend is like that.
I'm so totally with you with this. What the hell happens? WHY WHY WHY? LOL
Damned men. First getting us knocked up. Then... MONDAYS.
I used to have this problem, then I stopped caring. OK, I didn't stop, but I did stop caring so much. What's more important is my sanity. So my new attitude is, house be damned until Sunday. That's when I give it a thorough cleaning, to start to week off right. At least it's still tidy on Monday. The rest of the week, well, not so much.
Thank you (and the gajillion other commenters) for letting me know that I'm not the only one experiencing this. Why does everything seem to fall apart over the weekend. I have voiced this to my husband more times than I care to count....and no, I cannot say that he and the kids are 100% responsible either. I guess we are all just more lax over the weekend.
Well crap - what does it mean when your house looks like this every day? I have 3 boys and 3 girls (very Brady, I know), but I don't have Alice.
Oh my- if you find a solution to this problem, please share!
I think it's mostly due to the fact that I take the weekend off cleaning...
This happens here too, and I think it's that I just keep hoping, all weekend long, and against all reason, that it will occur to Steve to clean something before it occurs to me. Because the thing that I am still not used to about being The Mom is the whole in charge of everything clause. I didn't see that one coming. I don't want to be the boss (never mind the control issues), I want us to be co-bosses, and it never seems to happen quite the way I want. Especially on Mondays.
Every day is a Monday at our house. Hubby leaves a trail every where he goes, kind of like a snail, just less slimy.
Even when he decides to "help" he leaves a trail of debris.
Men. Grrrr....
Same here! I manage to keep the kitchen table clean & empty during the week. In the weekend? It's full of things that don't belong there.
If you ever find out why it happens, let me know! :)
I'm just now reading your post from yesterday as I have been madly cleaning my house -- I ditto all that you have said. Also, I thought everyone had assigned shelves in the fridge?!? I have always blamed this on my hubby, but I think there is a little bit of truth to the housemom in this house wanting to take a break too!
Great post!
Cool. It's like we all live in the same house!! I want to play on the weekends too. I now pick up on Sunday nights. Then I don't have to call in sick every Monday.
I'm glad I'm not alone!! Oh the clutter never ends!
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