Before having my daughter, I never would have guessed that motherhood would add so many different roles to my repertoire. And still, with that being said, I realize that since my daughter is only 17 months old now, there are still many more roles to come.  I relish these new developments as they come, surely. The one thing I don’t enjoy so much? The state of my house after my daughter has been playing in it. I am generally a neat person. My child is just that: a child. She’s only beginning to fully understand why I follow her around to clear the hurricane damage she’s left in her path. One day, I know it will come. But until then, there are a few things I do (or have done) to continually ensure that my house doesn’t look like a war zone.

To begin, one of the first and smartest things I did was invest in a splat mat. I’m sure most of you are well aware of what these items are. I’m not exactly certain why it took me so long to get hip, but then, that’s the beauty of hindsight, right? Anyway, for those of you who fall into the same category that I was in, please allow me a moment to enlighten you. A splat mat is basically a piece of plastic you put under your child’s high chair to catch any flying food. Prior to this purchase, I had to sweep multiple times throughout the day just to keep from attracting ants. Then, a friend of mine stopped over and watched me shake my head and sigh as my daughter threw part of her dinner on the floor. She laughed at me and said, “What? You’ve never heard of a splat mat?” Literally problem solved. I lay down the mat, roll her high chair over it, and let her go to town. When she’s done, I lift the high chair off (after she’s out of it, of course,) pick up the sides, and dump it into the garbage. So simple and yet so brilliant.

The next thing I do to try to contain the mess, is to only allow my daughter to play in one room at a time. On the stairs, I keep a baby gate to keep her from meandering upwards when she gets bored. I try to make sure that when she is ready to move to something else, I bring her back to her pile of blocks (for example) and tell her we have to “Clean up!” before we can play with something else. Of course, at this age, she doesn’t offer too much help with that. It does however give me a few moments I can clean up her mess, before I allow her to move on and create another one. Granted, she may not get to play with every toy she may have had in mind with this pattern. But then again, when she finally falls asleep at night, I don’t have to spend my precious “mom time” cleaning up the remnants of the day. It’s a beautiful thing.

Finally, the last thing I do to keep myself in a clean house is to make it a habit to only eat in the kitchen. Again, at my daughter’s age now, she pretty much eats wherever I put her. I know in the future, though, she’s going to want to watch a movie with dinner or eat on the couch. I certainly can’t blame her. I often have found myself tempted to have a snack and a sitcom at the same time. When I grew up though, we ate our meals around the table. There was no negotiation about it. My mom says that I’ve ALWAYS been clumsy. So this way she saved cleaning the carpet and/or the couch on countless occasions. I don’t know about you, but I would much rather mop up tile, than scrub carpet. In addition, I really believe our relationship will benefit from this. If we get into the habit of it now, when she’s a teenager (and probably thinks I’m horribly uncool and doesn’t want to talk to me) she’ll already be in the habit of eating at the table every night.  So, in addition, it will promote a healthy and regular interaction between the two of us.

I know that since I have become a mom, I have also become a boo-boo kisser, a storyteller, a funny face maker, a cook, and a laundress (among other things.) The one title I’ve taken on to keep my house from inflicting on my sanity though, is that of the Eternal Picker-Upper. Whether I’m lifting the splat mat, her most recent mess of toys, or her little butt back to the kitchen, I have found that this title keeps my house consistently clean and my mom time for the person it should be: me.

Hillary Hansen is a featured author for the site UniqueBathVanities.com, where you can find a fantastic selection of unique, traditional, or modern bathroom vanities for every style, size, and budget!