Yesterday, my mom and I decided to clean my car--you know, the trash can on wheels I drive around in on a regular basis.
Lest you wonder why exactly this was a two-adult job, let me remind you of my car-vacuuming fiasco of 2013 and let you know that my car then was spotless compared to my car yesterday.
Picture this:
The floors were covered in a layer of books, toys, lost shoes and socks, spare underwear, an extra diaper, and a random Snuggie. Clark loves Snuggies. Every time I wrap him up in one, I ask him, "What's a Snuggie?"
He invariably, cheerfully answers, "A Bwanket wif sweeves!!!" It's adorable.
Don't ask me why the Snuggie was on the floor of the car, but I'd assume it had something to do with Clark. I also found the chapstick Maggie has been missing for a couple of weeks, along with several homeless crayons.
The floors would have also been covered in several bathrobes and a bunch of costume jewelry, but I got motivated and took out all of our Nativity costumes (you know, the ones we used on Christmas Eve) last week, thank you very much.
Under the layer of items was a separate but equally daunting layer of crumbs. Graham cracker crumbs, goldfish crumbs, bread crumbs--layered about an inch deep, covering the floor.
Beneath that layer was the layer of spilled liquids. Candy cane juice (any parent who's watched their child cover their entire face along with everything within a 12-mile radius with pink stickiness after eating one mini candy cane knows exactly what candy cane juice is), regular fruit juice, candies that had been sucked on and then dropped, and a few other items--I have no idea what these might have been in their original form, but now they were just rock hard spots stuck fiercely to my carpet.
Add to this all a very generous amount of dog hair (Buster has been traveling with us a lot lately) and dried mud--while Steve and I were in the Valley, my parents took my kids on a hike and got caught out in a rainstorm. Rain in Northern Arizona always means lots of clay-like mud that sticks to your shoes two inches deep, and that mud had gotten EVERYWHERE in my car. How exactly did mud get on the ceiling? Your guess is as good as mine.
I'm beginning to feel judged, so I must clarify--I cleaned my car out in the beginning of December, before the first of our two family trips down to the Valley--but then Christmas happened. And then January happened. And then the car just became overwhelming, and I wanted to get to it, but just--didn't.
Hence, the two person job.
My mom dragged out the vacuum and used the upholstery brush to attack the dog hair and the dried mud, and I set to trying to keep all of my kids happy and excited about "helping." Luckily, my mom had a bunch of nearly-empty cleanser bottles, so I filled those with water and let my kids happily spray the outside of the car (and each other) with extremely diluted Windex while they wiped the outside in the freezing cold weather, and I scrubbed the inside (while chasing Clark down every time he tried to run away, of course).
I feel as though I will never cease to be absolutely amazed at the things I manage to vacuum off of my car floor. Never.
And although the floor mats are now rather more technicolor than gray, and the old Batman stickers that Jack got from the dentist over a year and a half ago are still stuck to the inside of his window, the rest of my car is clean. I even took it through the car wash so that all of those lovely little cleansers would be washed off before they completely eroded my paint job--I swear, as I went out to get my car and saw how beautiful it looked, now that it was clean--I could hear the angels sing the Hallelujah chorus.
Of course, it rained today...but at least I know my car was clean.
Which is why I'm blogging about it. Because that, my friends, will not be undone within one time of picking up muddy kids.
Lest you wonder why exactly this was a two-adult job, let me remind you of my car-vacuuming fiasco of 2013 and let you know that my car then was spotless compared to my car yesterday.
Picture this:
The floors were covered in a layer of books, toys, lost shoes and socks, spare underwear, an extra diaper, and a random Snuggie. Clark loves Snuggies. Every time I wrap him up in one, I ask him, "What's a Snuggie?"
He invariably, cheerfully answers, "A Bwanket wif sweeves!!!" It's adorable.
Don't ask me why the Snuggie was on the floor of the car, but I'd assume it had something to do with Clark. I also found the chapstick Maggie has been missing for a couple of weeks, along with several homeless crayons.
The floors would have also been covered in several bathrobes and a bunch of costume jewelry, but I got motivated and took out all of our Nativity costumes (you know, the ones we used on Christmas Eve) last week, thank you very much.
Under the layer of items was a separate but equally daunting layer of crumbs. Graham cracker crumbs, goldfish crumbs, bread crumbs--layered about an inch deep, covering the floor.
Beneath that layer was the layer of spilled liquids. Candy cane juice (any parent who's watched their child cover their entire face along with everything within a 12-mile radius with pink stickiness after eating one mini candy cane knows exactly what candy cane juice is), regular fruit juice, candies that had been sucked on and then dropped, and a few other items--I have no idea what these might have been in their original form, but now they were just rock hard spots stuck fiercely to my carpet.
Add to this all a very generous amount of dog hair (Buster has been traveling with us a lot lately) and dried mud--while Steve and I were in the Valley, my parents took my kids on a hike and got caught out in a rainstorm. Rain in Northern Arizona always means lots of clay-like mud that sticks to your shoes two inches deep, and that mud had gotten EVERYWHERE in my car. How exactly did mud get on the ceiling? Your guess is as good as mine.
I'm beginning to feel judged, so I must clarify--I cleaned my car out in the beginning of December, before the first of our two family trips down to the Valley--but then Christmas happened. And then January happened. And then the car just became overwhelming, and I wanted to get to it, but just--didn't.
Hence, the two person job.
My mom dragged out the vacuum and used the upholstery brush to attack the dog hair and the dried mud, and I set to trying to keep all of my kids happy and excited about "helping." Luckily, my mom had a bunch of nearly-empty cleanser bottles, so I filled those with water and let my kids happily spray the outside of the car (and each other) with extremely diluted Windex while they wiped the outside in the freezing cold weather, and I scrubbed the inside (while chasing Clark down every time he tried to run away, of course).
I feel as though I will never cease to be absolutely amazed at the things I manage to vacuum off of my car floor. Never.
And although the floor mats are now rather more technicolor than gray, and the old Batman stickers that Jack got from the dentist over a year and a half ago are still stuck to the inside of his window, the rest of my car is clean. I even took it through the car wash so that all of those lovely little cleansers would be washed off before they completely eroded my paint job--I swear, as I went out to get my car and saw how beautiful it looked, now that it was clean--I could hear the angels sing the Hallelujah chorus.
Of course, it rained today...but at least I know my car was clean.
Which is why I'm blogging about it. Because that, my friends, will not be undone within one time of picking up muddy kids.
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