Household Chores I Despise

"Muuuuum!"

As soon as I saw the title of Wondering Willow's latest blog post, caps and all, "Household Chores I Despise", I knew I would enjoy reading it. There's a weird kind of solidarity in people's almost universal hatred of housework, don't you think?

Like WW, as a stay at home mum I do feel that the housework is largely my 'job'. And because I am at home a lot of the time I see it all needing to be done. The mental list of chores sits in my head nagging away at me.

I thought I'd join WW with my top 5 at the moment:

1. The mountainous washing piles.
Arghh. I know that we have it easy compared to our mothers and grandmothers, but the sight of overflowing baskets of clean washing waiting to be folded sometimes makes me want to cry. Seriously. There are 2 across the room from me now, mocking me.

On a practical front, I have a reasonable system going with 3 laundry baskets on the go to ferry the dirty clothes out of the house, down the stairs and to the laundry, into the machine, out to the clothes line and once dry, back up again to the house. These bits I don't mind, it's the mountainous piles waiting to be folded that kill me. All those different things belonging in different parts of the house. When I do tackle them, sometimes all in one go on one evening dedicated just to folding, they end up in precarious piles waiting to be put away into overflowing cupboards that are only ever neat and tidy for a matter of minutes before some little hands are tugging at the piles and pulling them down again, only to be worn for 5 minutes before having vegemite smeared on them or icy pole spilled down them, taken off and tossed onto the floor (don't get me started on that one!). And so the whole cycle starts again. Sound familiar?

I sometimes daydream that when the littlies are a bit older I'll introduce an incentive scheme where the person who dirties the least clothing in the period of a week (excluding underwear!) wins a prize.

2. The aftermath of my 3 children under 6 eating a meal.
Cold, sticky rice stuck to the wooden floor can only be cleaned by picking each grain up individually, otherwise it gets squashed into the floor, sets like concrete and is almost impossible to remove later. Food is slipped into drink cups when my back is turned, making an awful 'soup' that is apparently highly amusing to youngsters. The most brightly coloured food on the plate ends up mashed into t-shirts (see point 1). Drinks are spilled at almost every meal. Sometimes onto papers or other things that need cleaning. And on and on... Why do they not tell you these things when you're considering having children?!

3. The fridge.
Sticky unidentified substances gathering in small pools, watery remains of vegetables seeping out of bags, ends of bananas going black, and to cap it off, all that guilt at throwing out unused food and unloved leftovers.

4. The bathroom.
Old and shabby, mould in the silicone that never comes out, grout that never comes clean. Grrrr.

5. The oven door.
It doesn't get done. Makes me sad.

What are your most hated household chores? Go on, do play along. I love to hear people apart from me having a whinge :-)