Finally Friday: Nora Pull-On Stretch Skinny Corduroys

Probably a stupid question, but if DH and I each have a dependent care FSA option from our employers, we can use both, right? So theoretically sock away $10K a year total? I know this is how it works for ‘regular’ FSA (medical), DH and I have our own separate accounts because our employers both offer it.

But I was reading the thread about childcare and everyone was complaining $5K was just a drop in the bucket, so I wondered if it was different.

I’m looking for a media console that can double as a toy/bookshelf in our TV/ playroom. Does anyone have a suggestion?

Help not kill my husband please. Apparently multiple family members have suggested to us the gift of a housecleaning service (either one time or ongoing), and he has turned them down. He thinks “we don’t make enough money for that” and “we shouldn’t outsource that, we are capable of doing it ourselves”. And then he said something along the lines of “I don’t want to outsource *you*, I want us to do it ourselves, its our job as parents.”

My house is a mess. I am a slob and always have been. No matter what I do, stuff just explodes around me. My husband is neater than I am and better at cleaning up after himself, but not so great about cleaning up after the kids. And because the house is so cluttered, we rarely get past the “pick most of the crap off the floor/table/counter and at least get it to the room it is supposed to be in” stage. Occasionally we get to the “actually organize a room and put things away and then vacuum” stage. My husband does a pretty good job of prioritizing keeping the living room and our kid’s room clean and prodding me to keep it that way. And he always does a quick clean of the bathroom semi-regularly and/or whenever we have guests coming.

AND our house is older and has lots of emergency fix it-problems that we keep having to address (when you are cleaning up the water and flood of plaster ceiling off the bathroom floor, sweeping the cobwebs out of the corners is not a priority, etc). But because it’s so cluttered, and just straightening up and dealing with disasters takes all the energy I’ve got, our house has admittedly straight up dirty areas. Like the kitchen and bathroom floors could really stand a good scrubbing, the shower my husband uses is disgusting, and there are often random cobwebs or dust bunnies or plaster dust or stray cheerios in corners, etc. In the 5 years we’ve lived here the windows have never been washed, and the bathroom mirrors rarely have. This is not me being a neat freak saying “how can you stand to live like that!” over a few stray dirty things – our house is objectively straight up dirty – and actually, the clutter kind of distracts/covers up the dirt – when everything is put away the dirtiness is even more obvious. It’s not horders level of “CPS should take the kids away or condemn the house” dirty – but it’s bad.

While I know that we “should” be able to clean it ourselves, the truth of the matter is that cleaning up the house will never, ever be my priority, and that I really don’t want to spend all of the little free time I have cleaning. As it is, my husband does 95% of the cooking and grocery shopping, and my contributions are mainly cereal, PB&J or scrambled eggs, so if I were able to pick up more household stuff, that would be where I want to start, not with scrubbing the bathroom floor.

How can I convince my husband that hiring someone to come in and clean with help force us to deal with the clutter, and that it will be much easier to *keep* it clean once it’s had a deep clean? Or that it’s not a moral failing to let someone else do some of the most mundane tasks that I hate so very much so that we can spend our free time actually doing something with the kids, or making actually healthy-ish meals instead of ordering pizza *again*, etc? Especially since our family members are offering to pay for it? He doesn’t seem to mind letting my or his mother come over and help my kids straighten their playroom, or to watch the kids while I do some cleaning/laundry/sort clothes sizes or he does big repair projects or outside work. My mother is retired and she has even come over and cleaned some things up while we were at work in the past. Which I’m not proud of, but I appreciate. I’ve tried asking why relying on free family babysitters or paying babysitters so we can do this stuff (or plunking kids in front of electronics or trying to get them to ‘help’ us) is ok [outsourcing childcare so we can clean], but outsourcing cleaning so we can spend time with the kids or do other things is somehow not ok in his mind?

I would just like to say that I believe hell must be getting toddlers ready to go outside in cold weather, over and over again. The mittens, the snowpants, the whining… Is it spring yet?