I don’t know when it all started to go downhill. I did everything the books say. I bought large toy bins and taught my children to sort their toys, I sang every clean-up song and watched every barney episode about being helpful. It worked for a time. I had charts for chores and little star stickers but somewhere along the line they stopped picking up after themselves. Somewhere in the middle of “clean up, clean up everybody everywhere” I lost them. I recently read a statistic that American homes are cleaner than they have ever been and that Moms (and a few dads) need to stop cleaning and start spending more time with their kids. Okay, I want to know who did this study? Did they knock on doors and ask people if their houses were cleaner now then 30 years ago? I mean really. I grew up in a clean house – all my friends houses were clean, maybe a dust bunny or two under the bed. I know more people NOW that have filthy houses than I ever did THEN. We had less then – we didn’t have as much stuff to make a mess with. I think that might be part of the problem - STUFF - we have too much of it. I have been in homes that make my skin crawl – I am not a neat freak, my house is not perfectly perfect at all times – I am a mom, I get it. But I have been in homes of socially respectable, working people, where you could not see the floor, the Christmas tree was still up in March, with wrapping paper scraps on the floor and they weren’t the least bit embarrassed either. Not fazed one bit. Amazing. So anyway back to the study about worry less about the cleanliness of your house and spending more time playing with your children. I don’t play with my children – because that would make me their playmate and that in turn would make me their friend – and isn’t there some other study out there that says you shouldn’t be friends with your children? My kids are just that. Kids. Messy rooms and rolling eyes comes with the territory, I should just get used to it.

My PET PEEVE of the DAY
Oh, and one more thing – Joe Biden is an idiot. He is not going to travel? Not get on the subway? Stay away from large crowds? I don’t think the VP of the USA has gotten on a commercial flight or the subway recently. The flu happens. Every year. People get the flu – 35,000 die from the flu every year. It sucks, but it is reality. Stop the panic Joe – use common sense. Don’t stop living your everyday life because of what might happen. If people stop going out, stop doing their day-to-day activities, our economy will sink even further. How many millions of people live in NY? How many of those people actually have the flu? The statistics don’t support the panic. I don’t get it.