My mom came over for a visit. I had tried to clean up a little beforehand so she wouldn’t know the depths of our messiness. But all that work was for naught when her hand stuck to the kitchen table.
That’s right. We’ve got a stickiness problem.
I’m just beginning to enjoy the girls’ independence in the kitchen. They have recently taken an interest in helping make their own lunches and breakfasts and making another pitcher of juice when mom is busy doing other things.
Problem is, where I would have wiped up spilled juice or jelly right away, they let it sit. And oftentimes, it’s a stealth stickiness problem. I don’t know it’s there until my arm hair is deep in strawberry preserves! Blech.
And then there’s the spilled juice. You can’t see it until other things, such as your foot, cat hair, or assorted crumbs start sticking to it. Ick.
Or you sweep the kitchen floor and the broom sticks to it. Then you know the broom is sticky, so do you wash the broom out, and then you can’t use it for 24 hours, or do you keep sweeping and hope the stickiness provides extra dirt lifting power?
Eeeeeewwwwww!
I’m just tired of the whole stickiness thing.
The easy thing to do is go back to old ways. Each and every drink, sandwich and popsicle is doled out by me, one-one-one. I watch the girls like a hawk and instantly clean up every gooey spill and drop as it occurs.
Good for cleanliness. Bad for days I’d like a little break from kitchen duty.
So this summer, I’m trying to take a moderate approach. OK, girls. You can have some freedom of movement about the kitchen. But every six hours, I walk through the kitchen barefoot and rub my elbows on the countertops, hunting for tacky spots. If I do NOT become adhered to any such spot, fine.
If I do, it’s time for the girls’ de-gumming crew to stop everything they are doing and swoop through the room and clean it all up.
Not exciting, perhaps. But it’s a project, anyway.
Maybe this summer it will be the sticky spots in our kitchen that become the glue that keeps our little family together.
(Either that or I’ll just start wearing shoes all the time.)
