Observations on Cleaning While Pregnant

So in preparation for Little Brother's arrival (which is obviously getting closer by the day) I have spent some time cleaning the guest bathroom this morning , which has given me a chance to make a few observations about how even cleaning is different when you are pregnant.

1.) Pregnant cleaning is irrational and extreme. Things that you would have NEVER thought about cleaning suddenly NEED to be cleaned, and cleaned NOW. I wiped down towel bars. I wiped down switch-plates. I wiped down baseboards. I wiped down cabinets. I wiped down walls! (As an aside, textured walls apparently hide a LOT of dirt and grime. I was astonished how dirty the walls actually were! Glad I did clean them.)

2.) Pregnant cleaning takes significantly longer than non-pregnant cleaning. This morning I spent two hours working on the one bathroom! I partially attribute this to the fact that the cleaning I did today was so much more thorough than my usual cleaning, however, even the basic cleaning takes longer. When you are as pregnant as I am now (approaching 36 weeks), it is much more difficult to navigate around the large belly. Stooping and bending down are two things that are just not easy to do anymore. Equally hard is standing back up once you are down! So things take much longer to accomplish.

3.) The usual cleaning products that you use (which never bother you when you are not pregnant) may, in fact, bother you a lot when you are pregnant. My mother taught me to clean, and clean well (not that I always do it!) and I am faithful to my list of harmful chemicals I trust to clean all the ickies and germs away. Usually I am able to clean the bathroom and keep the door shut (so that small children will not walk in and get into said harmful chemicals), however when I'm pregnant I can not do that. For some reason the smell will REALLY start to get to me if I don't keep things super well ventilated. So today while I was cleaning I just left the bathroom door open and stuck a baby gate in the doorway to prevent little "helpers" from entering. Even with the door open, I still had a difficult time scrubbing the bottom of the tub, and had to take several short breaks where I'd get up and go into another room for a minute or two and just breathe fresh air.

4.) You never realize you are tired until AFTER you finish cleaning. Seriously, you will plow through the whole cleaning never feeling even tired, and almost as soon as you are finished you will realize that you have over done it. The whole time I was working, I felt totally fine. However, as soon as I sat down after my cleaning spree was finished it dawned on me that my back hurt and then I started getting some lovely practice contractions (which will go away after I've rested some, so they are harmless and nothing to be worried about).

5.) (This one is totally unrelated to cleaning while pregnant, however I wanted to mention it here anyway.) Boys make bathrooms GROSS! I spent today cleaning the guest bathroom which Matt rarely uses and I couldn't help but notice how much easier it is to clean than our bathroom. I am DREADING cleaning our bathroom later, because I know the "ewwww" factor will be so much higher. I don't get it, but it's true. And for the record, I don't think my husband is any more dirty than any other man. I've had to clean up restrooms at a restaurant before and cleaning the girls restroom was always a cakewalk when compared to cleaning the boys bathroom. I guess it's just something about that Y chromosome.

So even though I am tired now, I am very pleased with myself. That bathroom was cleaned from top to bottom (including mopping) and it looks fabulous. I always love it when you clean something and it actually LOOKS like you cleaned (as opposed to say the kitchen, which practically gets dirty again the minute you finish...at least that's how it goes around our house where there is always a host of dishes being used).