There’s no secret that in my family, clean is king. I grew up in a tidy house with a very organized, thoroughly clean agenda. My parents spent lots of time with spray bottles and rubber gloves in hand. We even dubbed a little nickname for one another: The Rub-A-Dub-Dub Team.
Was I teased? I don’t know. Probably the right amount. But I can’t remember, though I do believe my house was once called “The Museum.”
While I can’t quite manage to bring our level of cleanliness to the same standard, I will say that cleaning now has a therapeutic, familiar, calming effect on me. It is something I can turn to. When the toilet is clean, I feel better. When I’m frustrated, I can scrub something and marvel at its transformation.
This morning, I spent time dispensing some of my clean peace wisdom and best practices onto the kiddos. Everyone was assigned tasks to clean and tidy the house. I gave everyone colorful sticky notes, each numbered with a few tasks. Each kid receives different tasks based on his/her age so that everyone takes around the same amount of time to get through his/her chores.
This morning, as a result of our efforts, I felt an enormous surge of peace. There is something magical about rote tasks that serve a purpose. LM1 had bed making, dishes, and laundry to do, while LM2 and LM3 were assigned the “more fun” task of bathroom toilets. They think this is the coolest thing to do because they get to wear the fun orange rubber gloves I bought for the occasion.
There’s something about unwrapping something from a package, fresh and clean, that makes little kids excited.
Finding peace, for me, is all about relaxing into something and giving it my full attention. When I see my kids giving their full attention to something, that brings even more peace. It was fun to see and wonderful to see the end result.
What brought you peace this week? Share the peace!
4 the Love of Peace 