Organize This, Baby

I will make a confession right now, my place is a bit of a mess. I just find it hard to get very motivated to clean up, especially when my husband's idea of "cleaning" is to remove everything on the floor, but pile it on all available surfaces. I take care of the kitchen, occasionally throw a load of laundry in or put one away, and other than that I just count the hours until the cleaning lady comes. I barely even clean up for her anymore. Before kids, my husband would go on cleaning whirlwinds when I was out of town, but with two active boys, a budding business and the need for naps that just ain't happening. And since we'll be moving out any minute now, really, no point in sprucing up the place, or ruining our rental walls with picture nails. Plus I really, really hate cleaning - I'm hoping my older son has inherited the OCD gene that my sister is now addressing with Prozac.

But for some reason there is one thing that motivates me to get the boys' puzzles, tinker toys, books, itty bitty cars and McDonald's plastic crap toys that have accumulated over their short lifetime. And that's a playdate. I'm not sure why 1) we have so many toys and 2) I bother to get them all cleaned up. Frankly if they are not "swimming to mommy" or playing hulksmash or minimatch ("we're not playing Ben 10 , mommy"), the begged for activities these days, they spend their time either counting Pokemom cards (Keegan) or battling with any random two toys: dinosaur and truck, hot wheel cars, and yes, tonight it was a toy Pokemom and his penis. The noises he makes are a riot.

But here's my fantasy - the new kids will come in and the fun will ensue. They'll play with legos that haven't seen the light of day since Santa swung by, a rousing game of Dino Math Tracks will be followed by the challenge of a transformer puzzle. And my ultimate dream, the creativity will just come oozing out of these soccer playing boys at the sight of construction paper, scissors, glue, pens, crayons and stickers. What more could they want? Oh right, that would be a skateboard and a basket ball.

What's funny is the last two times I found myself in a whirlwind of hauling trash, stacking games, shoving books and carrying trucks upstairs (even with torn ligaments in my foot :) were for playdates that didn't even happen. Once we went to their house, and then our plans to exchange date nights went awry when one kid came down with a stomach flu. Not sure whether to be annoyed that I cleaned for nothing, or thank the mom for motivating me to clean.