I had planned to clean out all cupboards, closets and drawers in the entire house this summer. Two months have passed and I finally came to terms with the fact I had not only dismissed weed pulling but also tackling any cupboards, closets or drawers. My cleaning lady must have felt sorry for me as she took it upon herself to re-jig and re-fold everything in my linen closet. One for 234, a terrible record.

My interest in the kid’s craft cupboard was twofold. 1) I wanted a place for after school activities that was organized with supplies that were easy to access. 2) I needed to find the source of the muffled, Chinese barking emanating from a child’s toy phone, buried somewhere beneath the rubble, screaming to be saved from the play-doh quake.

I anticipated the removal of all supplies, crafts in various stages of completion, activity books, stickers and stacks of construction paper, followed by a thorough wipe-down and re-shelving would take about thirty minutes. Once again, I was wrong. Two and a half hours later, I realized this was more like a two week, full-time project requiring several qualified staff.

As quickly as something made it into the recycling bin, one of the children had scooped it out, now dirtier than before and re-introduced it to the pile.

Greg, sensing my frustration decided to take the girls outside to play. By “the girls” he meant, the two oldest, leaving me in the house with the baby, the equivalent of the cartoon boxing kangaroo, on speed for a cleaning partner. Her hands move at impressive speeds when removing markers from a plastic container, sadly, she does not have a reverse button.