Funny that I should mention mopping with such derision the other day. Yesterday evening we mopped Hannah’s kitchen and living room floors and it was fun. The method is everything. I swear we have to do this at my house next week. Here’s how:
Between us we have four walking kids, all boys. We moved the furniture from the kitchen into the living room (the 4- and 5-year-old boys love moving furniture, the heavier the better) and then Hannah handed out brooms to everyone—she has about a dozen, in various sizes—and we swept.
Then out came the bucket of soapy water and everyone dipped his or her broom and scrubbed with it. It is much faster and more effective than mopping, and the bristles going back and forth make a fun scrubbing sound on the floor. We were all slipping and tripping over and around each other, barefoot, we two women and the five-year-old, four-year-old, almost-three-year-old and finally the sixteen-month-old with his yellow broom eighteen inches long. She and I did the baseboards while the kids went vroom all over the whole middle of the floor. Their brooms were bulldozers and steam shovels; ours were percussion instruments, to the rhythm of the Tom Petty music on the stereo.
"Okay, everyone, go put your brooms in the bathtub!" We trooped into the bathroom while Hannah came back from the linen closet with an armload of bath towels. Everyone threw a towel onto the floor, stepped on it with both feet, and shuffled around to the music. I am thankful the blinds were drawn! Who knows what strange dancers we looked like from outside? But when we were done the floor was smooth and clean.
The kids were tired by then so we moved the furniture back ourselves. The whole process took only twenty minutes.
bearing blog 