Every year spring rolls around, bringing with it new life, glorious growth and renewal, horrible allergies, and the looming sense of guilt over the fact that your house has not recovered since the holidays.  Or last summer. Or since you moved in.

So, for tired and overwhelmed moms everywhere, here are ten simple steps to make your spring cleaning go smoothly:

1. Energize – since you have so much work ahead of you, start the day off by treating yourself.  Head to Starbucks. Or if you’re cheap like me, McDonald’s (the frappe is almost as good, y’all…or you just get used to it over time, I guess).  Listen to upbeat music in the car to pump yourself up for all the FIERCE  productivity ahead of you.

2. Start where you’re at – you might as well clean out the van (or car, or SUV, but let’s be real-it’s probably a van) when you get home.  Scoop up the discarded fast food bags-“why are there so many? This can’t all be ours.” Throw all the toys, sippy cups, and random socks into a bag to hide in the front hall closet– neatly sort and put away later. Look back at the empty vehicle with a sense of pride and turn to head inside.  Spy that mysterious sticky stain on the door next to Little One’s seat.  Glance in Little One’s seat and see the veritable ocean of crumbs his poor tushy is smushed into day in and day out. Let your eyes travel to the backseat, where bigger kids have stowed empty water bottles and candy wrappers in every nook and cranny like some sick Avoid Throwing Things Away game.  Give up on a “spring cleaning” level of cleanliness for the car.  You’re not a professional, anyway, what do these people expect?

3. Occupy the children – you are prepared for this one because you know a busy child is a child who will leave you the heck alone happy child. Lay out new coloring books in the office. Turn on Netflix to stream Octonauts ad nauseam in the living room. Put out the bin of toys Little One is most “into” right now in the playroom.  Set up a stack of board games in the dining room for big kids. You got this, mama.

4. Bribery– everything fails, because why not.  “No one colors anymore, Mom.”  Kids can’t agree on a board game. Little One has decided he doesn’t LIKE the toys you sat out.  Little One has already SEEN all the episodes of Octonauts. Send them outside to play!  Ha, yeah right, this is 2018.  You can’t do that unless you go out as well to supervise, and then the whole day is wasted, so…resort to electronics and let them slip into a YouTube Kids coma as they drape themselves around the house.  

5. Gather supplies– again, you are prepared because you freaking rock! You’ve been scouring Pinterest- ha, a cleaning pun!- for tips, tricks, and HACKS (the best advice is now called a HACK, you know) on spring cleaning. You’ve got lemon slices to rub on stainless steel faucets, you’ve got baking soda to sprinkle on mattresses and carpets, you’ve got dryer sheets to rub on blinds and baseboards, you’ve got lavender essential oil for-what was it for? Never mind, you’ve got vinegar for like, literally everything, and you are ready to DO THIS in a minimally harmful and chemical-ly manner! YES!!! (maybe the second coffee was a bit much…)

6. Begin! – You know that it’s best to get the worst job out of the way first, so you start in the kitchen.  Wipe everything down with your vinegar spray, sprinkle baking soda on those hard to remove scummy spots.  Keep wiping, it has to work.  You saw the before and after pics on Pinterest, after all.  While you’re in the kitchen, might as well have a snack.  As you open your honey bun whole grain, gluten-free, locally sourced oats and honey bar, the children use their supersonic hearing to determine that you are in the kitchen and naturally deduce that they must be served.  They zoom in from various spots around the house for their cheez its whole grain, gluten-free, locally sourced snacking crackers, and Score! You manage to snag two of them on their way out and assign them trash-can-emptying and dishwasher-unloading.  Look at you go, delegating and instilling a sense of responsibility in those precious children of yours!  Finish up with the floors, glance at the baseboards and gunk lining the front three inches of every single cabinet door (whose hands are that gross? what even is that?) – but alas, the floors are wet so it will have to wait.  

7. Continue! – Move through every room in the house, sprinkling baking soda and tossing lavender droplets through the air like some sort of Natural Cleaning Fairy!  Bring a trash bag along-it must be a black trash bag, very important so the children don’t catch on – and toss the occasional errant toy or stuffed animal in it to donate to charity.  Make neat stacks of each child’s belongings on the stairs for them to take upstairs and put away in their rooms. Watch as neat stacks become mountains.  *Make mental note to get those little stair baskets so everyone’s random crap can look cute while it sits ignored for days.  You’re only interrupted 27 times for phone calls, emails, potty breaks for Little One, forcing children off their devices,  refereeing a fight between Child 2 and Child 3, and of course making  yourself another coffee, because you seem to be crashing from that oats and honey bar.  Ahem.  

8. Finish Strong!– Head upstairs, where you dust, run the vacuum, and then hit the bathrooms.  You’ve got rubbing alcohol, which you’ve read works wonders on glass and doesn’t have all the chemicals of, well, chemicals! Dab some on a rag and get to rubbing.  Gag.  Think back to some unfortunate choices in your life involving Skyy vodka, which is now all you can smell, and slowly cap the rubbing alcohol and hide it in the back of the cabinet.  Bust out the Windex.  Realize that time is running out, and motivation is too, and just Windex everything else.  Toilets, bathtubs, it’s fine. It’s all fine. Windex is a cleaner, too, you know. Things are shiny, smudges and potty accidents are wiped up, it’s all good!

9. Consider overachieving – Put away your cleaning supplies and decide you have an hour left with which to tackle the garage.  Open the door, stare in mixed wonder and horror at what you’ve created in there.  It’s like looking at the Upside Down in Stranger Things, or some Dark Forest in Middle Earth.  “That’s a weekend project, anyway” you mutter to yourself as you quietly back away and shut the door.

10. Celebrate – Use that hour to stare at your phone– reconnect with your kids, who’ve been so good all day entertaining themselves, making their own sandwiches and helping out Little One. Look around at what you’ve accomplished, brush aside those thoughts of “that’s basically the same stuff you do every day, not Spring Cleaning”  and “all you did in the playroom was spray Febreze.” You don’t need that kind of negativity in your life. Order pizza so you don’t have to dirty that sparkly, vinegar fresh kitchen of yours. Pour a glass of wine and enjoy a peaceful bath after dinner. Cough. Choke. Okay, it’s a little Windex-y in there still. Maybe open a window and take a quick shower.  

Spring cleaning 2018 is DONE, and you are a champion!