I’d be lying if I said we were a messy household. My husband has inherited a cleaning gene from his mother and it looks like it’s been passed on to Ted too.
We keep an old Mr Muscle squirter full of water (and marked as such) for Ted to play at “cleaning”. Which he does frequently. And hilariously, this is very much “copying Daddy” rather than mummy. I’m the tidy-upper and putter-away but my husband does most of the cleaning.
And whenever he protests about this, I generally respond “Yes but I clean up more often than you cook.” Touche.
It sounds great having a husband obsessed with cleaning but it can be a double edged sword when they wash up before you’ve eaten dinner. Plus I’m getting used to entering my bathroom and finding my six year old squirting water all over the sink and wiping it up with blue cloths. He tries to do this with the kitchen floor but I’ve put a stop to this as a six year old spraying the floor with water whilst you cook is plain dangerous.
So it was with pure altruism that I took Ted to a cupcake decorating class organised by Mr Muscle promoting their new touch up cleaner. Ted gets to decorate and eat cupcakes, my husband gets a supply of cleaning products and everyone’s happy.
Ted is so taken with this new Mr Muscle touch up cleaner that he’s cleaned the bath with it last night. It’s designed to be used with one hand – it’s a pump action that sprays upwards onto your kitchen paper or cloth. And the discreet bottle is tasteful enough to leave lying about without looking obviously like a cleaning product.
How to spot when cleaning obsession has rubbed off on your kids:
- They tell their friends off for getting crumbs on the floor at birthday parties
- They ask all your friends what type of vacuum cleaner they have
- The Dyson salesman in John Lewis remarks that your child knows more about their products than he does
- They refuse to take part in activities on the grounds they are “too messy”
- They ask to wear aprons for painting and craft activities
- When you collect them from after school club they’ve a broom in their hand
- The after school club staff say “he can come and do this round my house”
Top messiest jobs for kids in the kitchen:
- Melting chocolate
- Breaking eggs into a bowl
- Sprinkling decorations on cupcakes
- Squirting cream onto puddings
- Making cups of tea – just think of all those brown rings and sugar on worktops
- Spreading jam on toast and getting burnt crumbs in the butter – ugh!
- Hang on – this sounds like my dad coming to visit….
With thanks to Mr Muscle who hosted the cupcake decorating class at Home Sweet Home.
