We Need Help Tidying Up

So, when Peter was in the hospital with RSV, Corey was left alone with the rest of the sick kids. They took refuge in Midway. Corey let me know several times that he was drowning in life. Too... many... children. We are in over our heads. "If you love me, you'll let us get a maid or a nanny or a cook... We can't continue on like this." I do love him, so I said okay. He checked out things on Care.com. I looked too. I found a nanny who was a guy, and thought that would be good, if Corey was looking for someone to be a surrogate father for Owen to attach to. He didn't want that though. He put up an ad, got a few applicants, and arranged for one to dome today. She is from Brazil, her name is Cissa. It was fine. But I did have to call friends to help myself cope. Nicole didn't answer, but luckly a neighbor friend answered. My question to her "We have a maid coming today and I'm not excited about it... What is wrong with me?" My friend could relate. She has a maid service come every other week on Saturdays, a group of 3-4 ladies and they clean the whole house in an hour, but she admitted that she usually tries to leave the house if she can while they are there. I told Corey I was fine if she came but I might go in the basement with the kids. "Please don't hide!" Well what if I need to nurse Peter? I did my best to not disappear, but after she came it was apparent that she did not speak English well and my Portuguese isn't great, so we needed Corey to translate anyway. So I did hide a little bit after Corey got home. She was scheduled to come from 2:30 - 5:30 but then asked if she could come at 1:15. So my quiet time to myself when O and D are taking naps was kinda ruined. AND here is the really dumb part is that it didn't even seem like she came. She left at 4:15, right after the kids got home from school (= chaos and mess) and just in time for me to go into the kitchen and make dinner (dinner prep = mess) We ate and then Corey and the kids all left without cleaning up (= mess). They went to go watch a movie (Captain Marvel). Walking at the theater -

Owen and Daniel playing in the Lego Movie 2 Display.

After they left, I headed out too (= no one to clean up the mess yet!) I went to go pick up a dumb phone for Ethan and Wes to use. Cause we are taking away the smart phones for all the non-adults (Mel is keeping hers). We took away Ethan's iphone on Saturday. Corey bought it actually, for the original price that E paid for it last summer, so Eth got a great deal and Corey is glad that the iphone issue is now officially over forever. Corey has not liked the iphones cause he is not able to block things with the parental controls like he can on the androids. Oh, and another little update on our teen drama (end of this post) - so E went to bed mad, woke up mad, wouldn't get up for church, so Corey did what he usually does and said he'd be back in 10 minutes and if E wasn't out of bed, he'd get a splash of water in his face. So, I check on E while Corey was in the shower, and he was gone - bed empty. But he wasn't in the shower, I looked around the house for him and he was just gone. Luckily it snowed a bit last night, so I was able to tell, from the lack of footprints in any of the snow around the house, that he had not left home. So I looked around in the basement, I couldn't find him anywhere. So I didn't go to church today cause I couldn't find Ethan. I did finally locate him at 9:20 - hiding under Abi's bed. He said, by taking his phone, we've taken away his only motivation. Like he didn't have a reason to go on anymore. "So are you going to school tomorrow?" "Of course I'm going to school..." (I'm on the floor looking and talking to him under the bed) "Well I would have though that 'of course' you'd go to church, so just checking..." I spent the rest of the day being a mediator between him and Corey, explaining to each what the frustrations were of the other (it's nice when it's my turn to be the good cop) Ethan: Dad is too involved in my life! Corey: It's because he asks for so much: gas$, tour$, lessons$, lunch$ (he doesn't like the school menu and would prefer to eat out) and clothes, and he's not working hard (music practicing) or contributing to his expenses! Anyway, we went back and forth all day and thankfully they were on speaking terms again by the end of night. Anyway, ok - back to our messy house!

(and I'm just going to ramble it all out and I'm probably not going to explain my thoughts very well here, but I'll try) - so we all left at the same time - to movies and me to pick up dumb phones, and then we all got back home at about the same time, and guess what, surprise surprise - since none of us had cleaned up after dinner, the house was once again a mess! Cause the kids came home from school and dumped everything while I made dinner and then we all left. You could hardly tell that a lady had been here today cleaning for 3 hours. Because really Corey's hope is that he will have less work to do cleaning, but all he does is the dishes and the kitchen, and those were a now, once again, a mess. So it didn't matter that the maid had cleaned the windows or vacuumed the front room. He doesn't do those areas anyway! He said "I guess all I do is clean the kitchen..." yeah. But he said it was to help me, which was nice, but it was really to help him feel like the house is in order, and it never feels like that if the kitchen is messy. Before she came, he was asking me what I wanted done. But I really didn't want anything done, this was his thing. But he wanted me to make it my thing, so I tried and made a list, and she did the things on the list. I wasn't ready for her though - he thought he had marked for her to bring her own supplies, but she said he said we'd provide them, and I mostly just use ecloths. She asked for windex, but I don't have any, I unsuccessfully tried to explain in Portuguese that I just use water and ecloth polishing cloths, but I couldn't explain it so instead I went to try and find one. But I wasn't sure where the polishing clothes were... I thought I remembered seeing one of them in the basement. The basement is such a mess right now, cause each time anyone "cleans" the main floor, we throw things in a bin or bag and then put it in the basement. Sigh. What we really need to do is watch Marie Kondo together, particularly episodes 1 "Tidying with Toddlers" and episode 3 "The Downsizers" - I could really relate to the mom, Katrina, in that one - how she wants to create a home, and feels like it's her job but she's failing at it, but she's also trying to do it all alone... her kids and husband don't know where anything goes. That is one of our problems here... it feels like I'm the only one who knows how things are organized and I'm trying to do it by myself and I can't keep up. And I'm not good at teaching the kids how to help. I give instructions, but they don't follow (like the little girls cleaning their room) and I try to follow up, but unless I hold their hand and do it with them, it seems like it doesn't get done. Mel, Hyrum, and Abi know how to clean on their own, but Mel and Hyrum are usually too busy, so it's just Abi. So anyway, the maid that came today was ok, but it isn't going to work, cause if I really am supposed to own this, I have to be able to talk to her, so we need a US lady or Spanish speaking. So the maid discussion will be continued.